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LOUISIANA 



A RECORD OF EXPANSION 



BY 



ALBERT PHELPS 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
(Cbe Haitjetjjitie ^re^^, Cambribge 
1905 



OCT 23 i^U& j 

„ i 






COPYRIGHT 1905 BY ALBERT PHELPS 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published October igos 



PKEFACE 

"iSTDOUBTEDLT the earlier development and primary 
nportance of the original thirteen English colonies, 
hich formed the nucleus of the present United States, 
justify all the attention that has been given to their in- 
stitutions, and even the somewhat exclusive prominence 
which they maintain in popular histories and in the mind 
of the general reader ; but a glance at a map which pic- 
tures the expansion of the country by territorial acqui- 
sition, and the miraculous peopling of the wilderness, 
reveals a vast process of which the whole history of the 
first Federation of States yields only an embryonic sug- 
gestion. 

The Latin settlements in the Mississippi Valley, de- 
signed as they were by France to restrict the English 
colonies between the Atlantic and the Alleghany Moun- 
tains, threatened the coherence of the feeble Federation 
of States, checked the drift of pioneers that instinctively 
bore the destiny of the nation ever westward, and, even as 
late as 1803, offered a dangerous and alluring scheme of 
conquest to Napoleon. The mere fact that the possession 
of the Mississippi Valley by a foreign power prevented, 
and would forever prevent, the United States from be- 
coming an equal nation among the powers of the earth, 
gives the final acquisition of this wide territory an im- 
portance fully as great as the act of independence which 
definitely committed the confederate colonies to a destiny 
free from European control. Tn the records of Louisiana, 



VI PREFACE 

one finds, also, the story of the final conflict of Latin 
against Saxon for the domination of North America ; and 
thus the history of Louisiana becomes a leading episode 
in the vast western movement of the Anglo-Saxon race 
— one of the triumphant incidents in the slow unification 
of humanity. 

The main theme of the present volume is the attempt 
to trace this episode in broad lines. In G-ayarr^'s Eng- 
lish " History of Louisiana " and in Miss King's '' New 
Orleans " the romance and individual peculiarities of 
Louisiana are accessible. But there seemed need of a 
critical handbook that should give a running commentary 
upon the whole narrative, fixing the place of the State 
as an individual in the union of commonwealths, and em- 
phasizing the part which it has played in the development 
of the nation and of national and international policies, 
in the hope that other readers than Louisianians may find 
matter that concerns every citizen of the country. 

Naturally, so large a theme, when compressed within 
the present limits, must be handled with frequent disre- 
gard of details. Nevertheless, although the special stu- 
dent may find little in the book that is likely to be new 
to him, — so far as the facts are concerned, — and although 
only a small part of the material examined and collected 
could be used, still the volume as it stands has been 
based entirely upon examination of the original sources. 
It had been possible occasionally to bring forward new 
particular facts of more or less importance to the special 
student, but this temptation has been set aside with a view 
to making the book more useful and interesting to the 
general reader. 

The result is the sifting of much crude matter of fact 
collected from many sources ; but the bulk of ttie material 
used in the book itself has been found in the extensive 



PREFACE VU 

Louisiana collection of Mr. Gaspar Cusachs, of New Or- 
leans, in the manuscripts owned by the Louisiana Histor- 
ical Society, and in newspaper files and official records, 
with several important additions from the papers of Judge 
Gayarre, kindly put at my disposal by Mrs. Gayarrd 
through Miss Grace King, to whom the book owes much 
more than can be reckoned in a mere acknowledgment of 
indebtedness. 

A. P. 

New Orleans, 3 October, 1905. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Eaely Exploration of the Mississippi Valley 

AND THE Gulf of Mexico 1 

II. FmsT French Settlements in Louisiana . 21 

III. John Law and the Mississippi Bubble — Seat of 

Government at New Orleans ... 52 

IV. Louisiana a Royal Province — Cession to Spain 88 
V. The Revolution op '68 106 

VI. Spanish Reconstruction — Louisiana and the 

American Revolution 127 

VII. Louisiana in International Diplomacy . . 149 

VIII. Louisiana acquired by the United States . 178 
IX. Description of the Ceded Territory — Dis- 
putes in Congress over its Admission . .197 
X. Louisiana a Territory of the United States — 

The Burr Conspiracy 222 

XI. The War of 1812 and the Battle of New Or- 
leans 252 

XII. Political and Economic Troubles leading to 

Secession 284 

XIII. Civil War and Defeat 308 

XIV. Congressional Reconstruction and Military 

Rule 334 

XV. The Fight against " Carpet Bag " Rule . 362 

XVI. Summary and Conclusion . . . . . 393 

Index 401 



LOUISIAI^A 



CHAPTEK, I 

EAKLY EXPLORATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 
AND THE GULF OF MEXICO 

Towards the close of the fifteenth century a new era 
of exploration had marvelously extended the physical 
and mental horizon of the world and laid open dazzling 
new fields for conquest and colonization in Africa, in 
Asia, and in the Americas. Almost simultaneously the 
long process of political centralization, which for many 
generations had been removing the feudal characteristics 
of governments, had then put the power of each of the 
chief monarchies of Europe into the hands of strong 
kings ; nations had been born as unified governments, 
as organic masses ; and, for the first time since modern 
Europe had risen from the fragments of the Roman Em- 
pire, international policies began to come into promi- 
nence. Almost at the moment when a universal spirit 
of activity and zeal for wider knowledge had roused the 
whole world to a sense of new needs, and when each of 
the lusty new powers had begun to dream itself an em- 
pire, came Columbus back from his voyage into the un- 
known with almost incredible tales of golden islands 
beyond the farthest rim of the western seas. Thus, at 
the one point of destiny towards which the retrospective 
view of history unfolds the progression of a twofold 
converging succession of events, the need and the power 
met ; and, as just such an analogous combination of cir- 
cumstances resulting from Roman conquest made possible 



2 LOUISIANA 

the marvelous spread of Christianity, so an equally vast 
process of evolution prepared for the discovery of new 
worlds and made that event serve, as if by design, the 
end towards which the political growth of European na- 
tions had been shaping. 

The inevitable result — national expansion — brought 
about the tremendous series of international wars which 
for hundreds of years have kept the balance of power 
unstable and changed the character of modern history. 
Henceforth the histories of the several nations became 
inseparably international. The first explorations rapidly 
lost their imaginative and religious motives for others 
more purely political and practical ; and the first M'-ars 
of the new period ceased to be, as they had been hith- 
erto, either feudal or religious, and became, in the mod- 
ern sense of the word, political and economic, and were 
destined to be fought out finally in those very lands 
which exploration and colonization soon made the field 
of newer and wider policies. Pope Alexander the Sixth, 
by his famous Bull of Demarcation issued after the re- 
turn of Columbus, had divided the new lands, whose 
vastness was all unguessed, between Spain and Portugal ; 
but no earthly power might restrain or guide within 
fixed bounds the sudden flood of migration from Europe 
to the west. As early as 1497 the English had estab- 
lished a claim to North America by the discoveries of 
Cabot ; and throughout the whole of the sixteenth and 
the first half of the seventeenth centuries, during the 
period occupied by the growth of the Empire through the 
power of Spain and Austria under Charles V, by the E,e- 
formation and the Thirty Years' War, each of the powers 
sent expeditions into the ever widening region of the 
New World, regardless of all claims save the imperative 
need which drove the whole race to this greatest migra- 
tion of all its wandering history. Out of the maze of 
tangled motives, wars, alliances, and the rise and decline 
of Spanish, Austrian, and Swedish influence, the two 



EARLY EXPLORATION O 

great protagonists of the drama slowly stand forth — 
France and England. In North America and in India, 
as well as in Europe, these two powers were gradually 
brought face to face in final conflict. The power of 
France at last hung upon the possession of the valley 
of the Mississippi and the domination of the Gulf of 
Mexico ; and thus the history of Louisiana, even to the 
time of Napoleon Bonaparte, is chiefly the narrative of 
the attempt of France to check the growing power which 
England was arming against her throughout the world. 
Outside and above the smaller internal history of Louisi- 
ana rolls the vast struggle of the nations, while the 
young colony, remote from the scene of conflict, remains 
almost passive, as if conscious that another destiny 
awaited it unguessed by the rivals that shed their blood 
to possess it. 

The history of Louisiana, therefore, practically begins 
with the French expeditions of exploration which ema- 
nated from Canada in the latter part of the seventeenth 
century. It is true that the Spaniards had traversed a 
great part of the country, but their expeditions had 
been barren of results, and in so far as they bear upon 
the subsequent story of the French province of Louisi- 
ana may be summarized in a few words. The expedi- 
tion of De Leon, in 1513, had not only failed to find the 
Fountain of Youth, but had not even determined whether 
Florida itself was an island or a part of the mainland. 
In 1519, Francis de Garay had sent Alonzo Alvarez de 
Pineda from Jamaica to explore the northern shore of 
the Gulf. Piiieda had skirted the coast from St. John's 
River in Florida to Mexico, and had discovered the 
mouth of a great river which his map names E,io del 
Espiritu Santo and which may perhaps indicate the Mis- 
sissippi. In 1527, Panfilo de ISTarvaez received from 
Charles V a grant to all the northern coast of the Gulf 
and set out to explore it, but he and his whole party 
were lost, with the exception of Cabeza de Yaca, two of 



4 LOUISIANA 

the men, and a negro slave, who finally reached the Span- 
ivsh outposts on the Mexican frontier after almost ten years 
of wandering in the wilderness. The accounts of the 
country which De Vaca gave out and the things he said, 
or, rather, did not say, but mysteriously hinted, gave the 
impulse to the brilliant expedition which De Soto, in 
1539, led from Florida across the present states of Georgia, 
Alabama, and Mississippi to the Great Kiver and over into 
the present state of Louisiana ; but this exploration, too, 
came to naught, for at the death of the commander his fol- 
lowers knew but one desire, to get out of the country as 
quickly as might be ; and the long march through western 
Louisiana under the leadership of Muscoso, the return, 
the descent of the Mississippi, and the voyage through the 
Gulf to Panuco were all so hastily made that but little ob- 
servation was taken that might serve to guide subsequent 
explorers. The fatal hope of finding a repetition of the 
spoils of Peru and Mexico had been the only motive of 
these early expeditions and had been the chief cause of 
their failure. Nevertheless, the Spaniards, until they 
were finally aroused to jealousy by the later explora- 
tions and claims of the French, made no attempt to colo- 
tiize the Gulf coast, with the exception of the settlement 
established by Tristan de Luna in 1559, at what w^as 
called the Bay of Ichuse ; but this settlement was aban- 
doned and the actual situation forgotten, for the powder 
of Spain had already begun to decline perceptibly, and 
she was soon too much busied with the struggle for the 
retention of what she held to make further large at- 
tempts to extend her already vast colonial domain. The 
destruction of her Great Armada, in 1588, overthrew her 
naval supremacy ; and England, freed from this menace, 
began to graft permanent establishments upon the east- 
ern seaboard of North America. The time of England's 
great power, however, was not yet come, and in the story 
of the rise of France lies the story of the Mississippi 
Valley. 



EARLY EXPLORATION O 

The Peace of Westphalia, in 1647, marks the begin- 
ning of the supremacy of France among European pow- 
ers, for upon her had fallen the chief burden and glory 
of defeating the Empire. In the impulse given to her 
national growth by the consciousness of this new ascend- 
ency, her attention was naturally directed more than 
heretofore towards ISTorth America, where the early ex- 
plorations of Cartier and Champlain and her establish- 
ments in Canada at Port Royal, Quebec, and Montreal 
gave her a claim and a firm hold upon a promising ter- 
ritory. North of the Gulf of Mexico, she had but one 
serious rival, in the English colonies ; but these, clinging 
in a narrow strip to the Atlantic, left free the unknown 
region of the interior of the continent, and their appar- 
ent insignificance gave but little indication of their in- 
herent strength and capability of growth. The new reign 
of Louis XIV saw the first serious attempts of France to 
hold the continent of North America, and to meet and 
check the efforts of England in the same direction. From 
the establishments in Canada, the path of French explo- 
ration and colonization was forced by the position of the 
English colonies to move westward up the St. Lawrence, 
and led, as it were, by what might be called a natural 
predestination, to the discovery of the Great Lakes and 
of the valley of the Mississippi, bending completely 
about and half encircling from Canada to the Gulf of 
Mexico the territory claimed and held by England. 
From the ambition of Louis XIV and the young enter- 
prise of Canada, therefore, spring the first sources of the 
story of Louisiana, named, as it was, for the Great Mon- 
arch, and intended to tighten in strangling growth about 
his one great rival for the possession of the western 
world. 

Perhaps because of the same physical necessities which 
laid out so definitely the direction of French expansion, 
as much as from any difi'erences of racial temperament, 
their methods and tactics in the whole struggle about to 



6 LOUISIANA 

commence were in striking contrast with those of the 
English. 

The English colonies were peopled chiefly by emi- 
grants who sought homes and liberty. Permanent settle- 
ments and governments were established at once. There 
was little time or desire to explore, for too much work 
had to be done about the young villages. As a result, 
these colonies remained near the seacoast, traded but lit- 
tle inland, had few friendly relations with the natives, 
and expanded slowly in extent of territory ; but popula- 
tion increased rapidly, the wild land was brought under 
profitable cultivation, towns and villages sprung up in 
numbers, and the spirit of independence developed by 
the zest of their vigorous life showed itself in their cus- 
toms and government. 

France, on the contrary, sent out few colonists of the 
right sort. The policy of the priest-ridden government 
was to keep Canada Roman Catholic. Followers of that 
creed were allowed to go there freely ; but, as they were 
likewise the favored class at home, few of these had 
reason to emigrate, and those few were often the least 
useful as colonists. Had the country been open as a 
refuge to the Huguenots, New France might have been 
settled as quickly and thoroughly and much in the same 
manner as New England had been by the Puritans ; but, 
as this was not permitted, Canada, for many critical 
years, depended for population upon the roving adven- 
turer and the religious zealot. It thus came about that 
New France practically depended for its existence upon 
the fur-trade and the Jesuit propaganda ; and thus, 
while the early history of French expansion in America 
is a record of daring and brilliant exploration, colored 
wdth endless romance and thrilling with spectacular hero- 
ism, both fur-trader and priest pass as mere transients, 
clearing the way to the west for the steady Saxon, who 
stopped to plant firmly his home, his school, his court- 
house, and his fort before his sons went out into the 



EARLY EXPLORATION 7 

wilderness. For the young Frenchman of spirit there 
was but little occupation. Government offices were few 
and, by their very nature, scarcely to be desired ; there 
was but little tilling of the soil, and, moreover, that 
source held out no promise of quick wealth which might 
enable the possessor to return to Paris and cut a figure 
in that brilliant city ; and even the fur-trade was ham- 
pered by attempted restrictions which authority was sup- 
posed to have placed upon it for its own advantage and 
profit. The vast shades of the illimitable forest, however, 
and the strange new life of the Indian villages, the wild 
hunting-parties of the savages, and the promise of nov- 
elty in the not unwilling eyes of the Indian girls, held 
out hints of romantic adventure that were irresistible to 
those young imaginations already fired to a keen temper 
in the vivid life of the France of that dashing age. Then, 
too, in that secret wilderness, no eye of governor or in- 
tendant might count the number of rich beaver skins 
that changed hands for a few bright beads or a swig of 
heart-softening brandy ; and the laws of companies and 
governments might be as lightly forgotten in that easy 
profit as the frowns of the solitary black-robed Jesuit 
might be dissipated in the laughter of the Indian girls. 
The charms of life in the merry greenwood were the 
charms of hell in the eyes of parents, priests, governors, 
and directors of companies ; but into the wilderness the 
young men went, and in such numbers that the weak 
settlements were all but depopulated of robust youth. 
Bushwhackers, runners of the woods, coureurs de hois, 
they were called. Wherever the Indians went they fol- 
lowed, by stream or lake or obscure forest-trail. They 
became hardy fighters, invaluable as guides and scouts, 
they did the best fighting in later wars with the English, 
and in after years even built themselves strong forts, 
such as Michillimackinac and Detroit ; but for the most 
part they lived a savage, wandering life or sported in the 
native villages, to the horror and disgust of the priests. 



8 LOUISIANA 

Sometimes, dressed in gorgeous finery, or often as naked 
as the Indians themselves, they would return to the set- 
tlements to dispose of beaver skins, to drink and swag- 
ger, and show their contempt for the bourgeois habitants. 
These picturesque young men, despising marriage and 
commonplace labor, were of little use to the growing and 
needy colony ; but upon their wanderings France was to 
base her claim to the interior of the continent. 

Equally as daring, though from far different motives, 
and almost as far-wandering as the coureur de bois, was 
the Jesuit missionary. To the priest, the vague inland 
wilderness was a land of heathendom and spiritual dark- 
ness, a land abandoned to the actual possession of the 
devil. To win this unholy domain to subjection to 
Christ and to save the abandoned souls of the doomed 
savages was the glorious vision that dazzled the eyes of 
the early missionary, and everywhere the indomitable 
Jesuit scouted in advance of the army of salvation. To 
his overwrought enthusiasm and fired imagination the 
supernatural powers of darkness were as real and as 
potent as they were even to the superstitious Indian. 
In the horrid glooms of the forest, the solitary priest 
saw many a demonic apparition, sometimes in the shape 
of men, sometimes in the forms of wolves or wildcats, 
sometimes in the yet more dangerous shape of woman. 
The same religious superexcitation which multiplied these 
supernatural obstacles produced a corresponding number 
of miracles and heavenly interventions, so that the " Ee- 
lations '' of the Jesuits read like tales from the lives of 
mediaeval saints. But, aside from supernatural dangers 
and miraculous works, there was fully enough of real 
peril and of actual achievement to win for these early 
missionaries a high place among the French explorers. 

Priest after priest broke the health of his body at this 
life, and many a one met a more certain martyrdom at 
the hands of the savages ; but nothing held them back, 
— not famine, nor cold, nor fatigue, nor fire and torture, 



EARLY EXPLORATION 9 

nor even loneliness and failure. Fearlessly the black robe 
went into the very stronghold of Satan, into the filthy 
hovels of the Indians, suffering their obscene jokes and 
mockery, serving the needs of soul and body, tending 
their sick in the hopes of turning a parting soul from 
hell, baptizing in secret and even by tricks that were 
often ludicrous the unsuspecting infants, preaching and 
teaching whatever the minds of his flock would receive 
or their patience tolerate. One by one they met the 
hideous deaths to which each of this indomitable advance 
guard seemed almost inevitably doomed, Brebeuf and 
Lallemant by torture and at the stake, De None in the 
snow, Jogues after the most hideously prolonged agony, 
from which he escaped only to return again though he 
knew that his death was certain, Chabanel, Garnier, and 
many another. Some, like Brebeuf and Jogues, suffered 
with an adamantine stoicism that astonished even the 
hardened savages, others, like the feeble Lallemant, with 
shrinking nerves and agony that was not wholly physical, 
but all with unhesitating bravery and unfailing heroism ; 
and to their wonderful zeal the greater obstacles only 
made the hoped-for victory seem greater and more sub- 
lime, and the greater martyrdom of the body meant only 
the greater reward of the eternal soul. 

Like the eoureurs de hois, though in a different way, 
the Jesuits served to cement a friendly relationship be- 
tween French and Indian and did inestimable service in 
softening the temper of the savage tribes and clearing 
the path for the explorer and settler. Though they 
failed of their chief aim, and though later on they de- 
parted from the unworldly motives of the earlier mar- 
tyrs, brought scandal upon the Order, and were a stum- 
bling-block in the way of such men as La Salle, still 
they sowed some seeds of civilization, and made even the 
mind of the savage feel and trust the benignant policy 
which always guided France in her dealings with the 
natives. Thus, while the wild coitreurs de bois scouted 



10 LOUISIANA 

in advance of the colonist, the indefatigable Jesuits, 
insinuating their way into the very heart of Indian life, 
left there an influence w^hich made more easy the spread 
of French power over the West and helped to explain 
that peaceful hold upon the native tribes which is per- 
haps the chief glory of French colonial history. 

The national government was slow to take advantage 
of the chance discoveries made by these men and formed 
no consistent colonial policy. Nevertheless, until the 
attention of Louis XIV was finally caught by the dis- 
coveries within the territory called Louisiana, private 
enterprise of Canadians continued to push French claims 
farther into the West. Among these many enterprises we 
are here concerned only with those which contributed to 
the discoveries upon which France based her claim to the 
valley of the Mississippi. 

The old hope of finding a water-way to the western 
ocean, and thus an easy trade-route to China and Japan, 
had not been abandoned, and therefore the adventurers 
who were attracted to the region of the Great Lakes 
with the hope of trading in furs and discovering copper 
mines were also eager to find in the tales of the savages 
some clew to that western passage. In this way, about 
the year 1634, Jean Nicollet, an interpreter and indefat- 
igable bush-ranger, almost stumbled upon the Mississippi ^ 
while on a journey to make a treaty of peace between the 
friendly Hurons and a tribe of wandering Winnebagoes 
then living near Green Bay on the western shore of Lake 
Superior. He brought back the exciting report that his 
guides had assured him that the W^isconsin E-iver emptied 
into a ^^ great water." This he supposed to be the West- 
ern Sea, and so the Canadians believed when the account 
of his journey was blown about the settlements ; but the 
Indians meant, of course, the Mississippi. 

Unfortunately, an outbreak of Iroquois hostilities 
prevented further exploration for some years. When 
1 Pere Vipont's Relation for 1640. 



EARLY EXRLORATION 11 

peace was again made, in 1654, traders and priests began 
to push westward once more. In 1659, the Sieur des 
Groseilliers, one of the most energetic of the coureurs 
de bois, reached the upper end of Lake Superior, and 
journeying thence westward for about six days met some 
wandering tribes who told him of ''a beautiful river, 
long, wide, deep, and comparable, so they say, with our 
great river, the St. Lawrence.'^ In a second journey, a 
year later, Des Groseilliers was accompanied by Father 
Menard, who was lost in trying to find the Hurons in 
the marshes of Wisconsin. In after years traces of him 
were found among the Sioux, and Perrot relates that 
Father Menard followed some Ottawas into Louisiana. 
If this were the case, the priest Menard was the first 
Frenchman to see the Mississippi. Father Allouez, who 
succeeded Mdnard, explored a portion of the Lake coun- 
try, and he too heard from the Sioux of the great river, 
the " Messipi " as he calls it ; and his accounts gave 
new stimulus to the hope of finding a water-way to the 
Western Sea or to the Gulf of California. 

The able Intendant Talon now took up the matter in 
correspondence with Colbert, the great minister and 
secretary of state to Louis. Talon foresaw the inevitable 
conflict which must take place between the opposing 
claims and interests of France and England in America, 
and to him the weakness of the French colonies and the 
strength of the English were apparent. The English, 
moreover, had now gotten possession of the Dutch colony 
of ISTew York, and Talon urged that the time was now 
ripe for offensive and defensive measures against them 
and their powerful allies the Iroquois. Colbert's reply, 
however, to the Intendant's recommendations shows 
plainly that the government intended that Canada should 
deal with the problem alone. 

Meanwhile, the one man with the brain and imagina- 
tion to conceive and the power and will to put into 
execution the plan which should have been the colo- 



12 LOUISIANA 

nial policy of Prance had appeared. Robert Cavelier 
de la Salle, a Norman of Rouen, who had settled upon 
his estate about nine miles below Montreal, had been 
told by some wandering savages, probably Iroquois, that 
a river which rose in their country flowed towards the 
west, and that by following its course one came after a 
journey of eight or nine months to the sea.""^ This river 
they called the Ohio, though evidently they included 
under that name both the Ohio and its continuation in 
the Mississippi, for Dollier de Casson writes that the 
Iroquois always called the Mississippi the Ohio. La 
Salle naturally concluded that by following the Ohio he 
might reach the Pacific. We know nothing of the expe- 
dition which he made in this direction after the time 
when he was deserted by the Seminary priests who had 
set out with him, for the only journal was kept by 
Father Gallinee. Nor do we know what La Salle did 
for the next two years. That he did, indeed, reach the 
Ohio and descend it as far as the site of the present 
Louisville seems certain ; but that he pushed on and 
actually discovered the Mississippi at this time (1670 ?), 
or during his expedition to the Illinois the following 
year, has not been sufficiently proved even from the 
documents advanced by Margry. 

These attempts, however, seem to have borne some 
fruit, for the Intendant Talon wrote urging Colbert to 
seize New York, to take and hold the Great Lakes and 
the Gulf of Mexico, and explore the intervening country. 

He met no response from the government, but himself 
took one official step when, in 1670, he sent Daumon de 
Saint-Lusson to take formal possession of all the country 
*' bounded on the one side by the seas of the North and 
West and on the other side by the South Sea." This im- 
pressive act took place at Saut Ste. Marie near the entrance 
of Lake Superior, in the presence of some interpreters 
and priests and the representatives of fourteen tribes. 
1 See Relation officielle de V entreprise de La Salle. 



EARLY EXPLORATION 13 

But the king, though steadily petitioned for support, 
paid little heed to what must have seemed to him and 
to his statesmen the wild dreams of mad Canadians. 

On assuming control of the government, in 1661, at 
the death of Mazarin, Louis was the greatest sovereign 
of the world. All Europe seemed to lie at the mercy of 
his ambition in those years between the Peace of West- 
phalia and the Dutch War of 1672. His plans for Euro- 
pean conquest were well laid and, up to a certain point, 
successful, but he never saw, or saw too late, that in 
his colonies lay the undeveloped wealth and power that 
would stay him in the struggle, that in those distant 
lands France would submit to her worst loss, her hardest 
humiliation, and that she would be checked and hum- 
bled there by the silent, slow-moving power of England, 
which he found no better means to thwart than by cross- 
ing with his gold the itching palm of its thoughtless and 
powerless king. 

New France must have seemed in those days an un- 
promising field of glory to the Sun-King. Nevertheless, 
though he never gave all the support for which his Cana- 
dian petitioners hoped, he at last sent out, in 1672, an able 
lieutenant-general and governor in the person of Count 
Frontenac. Acting upon the advice of Talon, Frontenac 
ordered Louis Joliet to seek the Great River which the 
Indians said flowed into the sea, and to trace it to its 
mouth if possible. 

In 1673, Joliet, in company with Father Marquette, 
descended the Mississippi by way of the Wisconsin, as 
far south as the Arkansas ; and Frontenac, upon receiving 
Joliet's report, named the river Colbert, in honor of the 
great minister upon whom the hopes of the Canadians 
depended. 

Meanwhile, La Salle also had secured the support 
of Frontenac for the tremendous scheme which he had 
evolved. He had explored for himself the Ohio valley 
and the Illinois country, and he was now convinced that 



14 LOUISIANA 

the Mississippi emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. His 
aim was now no longer the mere hope of finding a direct 
route by which trade might reach the riches of Asia, but 
the creation of an empire for France in the west. After 
building a fort on Lake Ontario and establishing treaties 
with the Indians, it was La Salle's intention to descend 
the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico and there build a 
strong fort by means of which the river might be held 
against Englishman and Spaniard. Holding firmly the 
Mississippi by forts established at suitable distances 
along its course, he hoped to form the Indian tribes into 
a peaceful confederation under French influence. 

The wonderful story of how this remarkable man 
labored against the most disheartening opposition and 
the most unforeseen strokes of fate has been so admir- 
ably told in Parkman's narrative,^ and the original 
sources of information have been made so accessible by 
Margry's compilation,^ that for the purposes of the pre- 
sent work no detail of the story is necessary beyond the 
indication of the plan which established the precedent for 
French policy in the Mississippi Valley and along the 
Gulf Coast. And it was indeed the imagination of this 
man that marked the course of subsequent history. To 
La Salle the face of the primeval wilderness was as a 
map upon which his vision read the dim tracings of the 
lines of empire. His work, his destiny was but the 
following and marking of these predestined lines. Stead- 
fast, undeviating, unhesitating, he followed through 
trackless forests and the mazes of netted lakes and wan- 
dering streams, an inner certainty that was to him as 
vivid and sure as a blazed trail. Before him went the 
vision of vast empire as a pillar of cloud by day and a 
pillar of fire by night. 

After nearly four years of disheartening struggle from 
the time he obtained his letters of patent from the king, 

1 La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West. 

2 Decouvertes et Origines Frangaises, tome ii. 



EARLY EXPLORATION 15 

La Salle at last reached the mouth of the Mississippi. 
On the 9th of April, 1682, he assembled his party upon 
a spot of high ground, and a cross bearing the arms of 
France and inscribed with the arms of Louis the Great 
was erected amid shouts, volleys of musketry, and the 
solemn chant of the priests. Standing near the cross. 
La Salle read aloud the formal Act by which he took 
possession of the whole country which he called Louis- 
iana, including not only, all the lands already explored 
by the French and all the tributaries of the Mississippi, 
but also the Gulf Coast as far as the River of Palms.^ 

Thus far successful, he turned at once towards his 
larger plans. He built a small palisaded fort, which he 
called Prudhomme, at Chickasaw Bluffs among the Arkan- 
sas ; fortified and garrisoned Fort St. Louis on the Illinois 
at Starved Kock ; formed a federation of the Illinois tribes ; 
and then set out for France to obtain redress for the 
wrongs done him in his absence and also to gain the sup- 
port of the king for his new design. This was to induce 
colonization of the Mississippi valley^ to hold and control 
the Gulf of Mexico by settlements along its northern 
shore, and to found on the Mississippi at the first point 
of high ground above its mouth the beginnings of a west- 
ern metropolis, which in fancy he saw the capital of the 
province that should spring from the fertility of the great 
valley and to which Nature herself seemed to predestine 
a golden future. 

In the Gulf of Mexico another rival was to be met, 
not so powerful as England, but still formidable in the 
prestige of a glorious past. From the time of Philip II 
Spain had claimed exclusive right to navigate the Gulf,^ 
and frequently her navy captured French vessels and im- 
prisoned their crews for attempts to establish trade with 
her colonies in Mexico, in the islands, or in Central and 

1 " Proces verbal de la prise de possession de la Louisiane," Margry 
ii, 186-193. 

2 See American State Papers, xii, 27-31. 



16 LOUISIANA 

South America. For years the only seamen of France that 
had held their own in these waters had been the daring 
corsairs and filibusters who, by their increasing power 
and ferocity, had become the terror of the Spaniards. 
The unaided successes of these bold fellows vastly encour- 
aged the French, and in 1680 the king had instructed 
the Comte d'Estrees, who commanded the French naval 
forces, to see that the Spanish made restitution for the 
seizure of French vessels and to enforce the liberty of 
navigation throughout the Gulf. 

This situation offered a promising opportunity to La 
Salle when, in 1684, he again went to France and obtained 
an audience with the king and Seignelay, the new min- 
ister. There was in France at this time a discontented 
Spanish creole, the Comte de Peiialossa, who had offered 
to the government a plan to establish some French buc- 
caneers at the Kio Bravo, to collect a force of corsairs 
and filibusters, capture the important Spanish post of 
Panuco in Mexico, seize the Spanish mines, and take pos- 
session of New Mexico.-^ French colonies were then to 
be sent out to settle and hold the territory. When La Salle 
arrived in Paris, this plan was still under consideration 
and doubtless influenced him in drawing up the prospectus 
which he himself laid before the king. Seeing the ready 
attention which such schemes as this of Penalossa's 
attracted, he seems to have felt that, unless he too could 
dazzle the French imagination and thus fall in with con- 
temporary inclination, he would get no backing towards 
the accomplishment of his real aims. He must have 
known, in his secret soul, that his offer to conquer the 
outlying Spanish possessions and hold his own discoveries 
with a force of only two hundred men, besides the army 
of Indians which he stoutly asserted could be collected, 
was wildly impossible ; but it may have been that his 
natural reserve, his distrust and disgust, and perhaps 
the great weariness that was creeping over him made him 
1 Projetsdu Comte de Peiialossa. — Margry, tome iii. 



EARLY EXPLORATION 17 

use these fancies as a mere lure to win the minister and 
the king to assist him. 

Whatever he may have thought of them, his fantastic 
offers brought him stronger support than he had ever 
known. He was given a hundred soldiers, some labor- 
ers and mechanics, and about thirty volunteers, gentle- 
men and burghers. Four vessels were put at his service, 
and six priests were detailed for missionary work, among 
them La Salle's brother. The expedition began inauspi- 
ciously, however, with disputes and open disagreements 
between La Salle and the Sieur de Beaujeu, who was 
to command the vessels as long as they remained at 
sea. They missed the mouth of the river, and, passing 
it, touched land at Matagorda Bay (also called St. Louis 
and St. Bernard) on the coast of Texas. By this time La 
Salle was so eager to be rid of the Sieur de Beaujeu, who 
had refused to go back along the coast to search again for 
the mouth of the river, that he decided to land where 
he was and make his further explorations unhampered. 
The rest of the story of intrigue, treachery, and misfor- 
tune, as one can piece it together from Joutel's "Journal 
Historique," Beaujeu' s log-book, the journal of the priest 
Cavelier, and the anonymous account printed by Margry, 
is one of the saddest in the early history of America. 
However fascinating it may be to follow the many trails; 
by which a relentless fate seemed to track the heroic 
man to his doom, there is here no need to give more than 
the barest record of its main events and their final effect 
upon the French domination of Louisiana and subsequent 
territorial claims against the Spanish. 

When La Salle began the building of his little Fort 
St. Louis, he found that none of the mechanics knew 
their trades, that the soldiers given him were iTseless, 
and that the supplies he had brought were also of the 
worthless sort which the government seems habitually 
to have furnished to colonists. Dissension and disease 
began to appear, and the men and women who had 



18 LOUISIANA 

accompanied the party as permanent settlers were dissat- 
isfied with the site which La Salle had chosen. La Salle 
therefore dispatched his vessel along the coast, and him- 
self set out overland to find some river that flowed into 
the Mississippi. After a short journey, La Salle re- 
turned to the fort, and with a larger force of men again 
set out. During his absence the survivors of the crew 
of his vessel returned half dead to the fort, "W'ith a tale 
of shipwreck and disaster. These men with their com- 
plaints increased the discontent which Joutel, left in 
command by La Salle, had difficulty to keep within 
bounds. La Salle returned, having gone as far west as 
the Colorado Kiver. The Spaniards, he found, had pre- 
ceded him throughout this whole territory, and in view 
of the discontent and inefficiency of his followers, he 
resolved to make the long journey to his fort on the 
Illinois to get the assistance of Tonti and further rein- 
forcements from Canada. Unhappily for himself and for 
the success of his undertaking, he chose, among the men 
to accompany him, the most dangerous and treacherous 
of the malcontents. Taking advantage of an opportu- 
nity when the party was in the heart of the wilderness, 
probably upon one of the branches of the Trinity Eiver, 
two of these men, Liotot and Duhaut, shot down their 
commander from ambush.^ The priest Cavelier, Joutel, 
Father Douay, and La Salle's young nephew were spared, 
and, in the midst of the quarrels among the conspira- 
tors, made their escape. They got safely away, but with 
little glory, and finally reached the Arkansas. Here they 
met some of Tonti' s men, for this one faithful friend of 
La Salle, hearing from Canada that the colony had been 
planted under such unfavorable circumstances, set out in 
February, 1686,^ knowing that La Salle would need just 
such assistance as he alone could bring. He had de- 
scended the river to the Gulf and explored the coast for 

1 On March 19, 1687. 

2 See Proces Verbal de Tonti," 13 Avril, 1686, Margry, tome iii. 



EARLY EXPLORATION 19 

ninety leagues east and west. Failing to find any traces 
of the colonists, he had left a letter for La Salle with 
an Indian chief ■^ near the mouth of the Mississippi, 
and had finally gone back to the Illinois, leaving six 
men among the Arkansas. These men received La 
Salle's wretched survivors and sped them on their way 
after they had told the miserable story of La Salle's death 
and had rested from the hardships they had suffered. 
At the fort on the Illinois they were hospitably received 
by Tonti, but for some reason they concealed their com- 
mander's murder from him and told him only of the 
wretched state of the little colony at Matagorda Bay. 
La Salle's brother, the priest, nevertheless presented an 
order which La Salle had given him months before for 
beaver skins amounting to about 4000 livres. The unsus- 
pecting Tonti gave the skins and sent the priest and his 
companions, one of whom had been an actual accomplice 
in the murder, on to Canada. Not until they arrived in 
France did these craven fugitives reveal the whole truth 
about the end of that miserable enterprise. 

The national government was no doubt prepared to 
hear the worst news. Seignelay had been informed as 
early as 1686 that the Spaniards had resolved to destroy 
La Salle's colony and had sent vessels along the coast to 
search for it. There may yet come to light evidences to 
show how far the Spanish may have been instrumental 
in the final destruction. It is certain, however, that they 
had fully determined to uproot this blown seed of France, 
and at least four expeditions were sent along the coast 
from Vera Cruz in vain attempts to locate the establish- 
ment, which, being somewhat inland, escaped their view. 
The French government and the French colony at St. 
Domingo were well aware of the hostile efforts of the 
Spaniards, but no assistance was sent to their country- 

1 See Lettre de Tonti au Ministre, 24 Aoust, 1686, in Margry's third 
volume. The letter left for La Salle was found thirteen years later by 
Iberville. 



20 LOUISIANA 

men. In May, 1688, the governor of St. Domingo wrote 
to the minister that he had been told by some filibusters 
and by some Spaniards that La Salle's colonists had all 
perished and that no trace of them could be found. Fi- 
nally a Spanish force reached the little fort, but accord- 
ing to their report they were spared their bloody work, 
for they found nothing but ruin and the usual traces of 
a recent Indian massacre. 

Even w^hen the priest Cavelier arrived in France with 
the story of his brother's murder and the wretched state 
in which he had left Fort St. Louis of Texas, the king sent 
out no aid and no efi'ort was made to investigate La Salle's 
death. But Tonti, finding at last the truth that had 
been shamefully concealed from him, and still faithful 
to the memory of the friend whom he could no longer 
serve, had set out in the dead of winter, in 1688, in a 
desperate attempt to reach La Salle's colony and rescue 
his friend's cherished plans from failure. In the Ked 
Kiver country all his men save two abandoned him. He 
was unable to get guides from the Indians and failed to 
find the way alone. Finally he was caught by the spring 
floods and forced to turn back. After narrowly escaping 
starvation and after being forced to eat his dogs, he reached 
the old fort on the Illinois in the fall of 1689. Here he 
was not long in learning something of the final failure 
of the colony. 



CHAPTER II 

FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN LOUISIANA 

For years the vast territory opened by La Salle was 
left undisturbed by the feet of French explorers. The 
priest Cavelier, indeed, made some attempt to induce the 
government to prosecute his brother's plans, but the ap- 
parent failure of those ill-fated expeditions put a check 
upon further efforts. 

The king himself was too much occupied with his 
schemes of aggression and acquisition of territory in the 
Rhine country to give much thought to America. Thus 
he was involved in the long war which was waged against 
him from 1690 to 1697 by the Grand Alliance. The 
French and English colonies were drawn into this con- 
flict, known in our colonial history as King William's 
War. The struggle was negative of results, the situation 
in America remained unaltered, and the Peace of Rys- 
wick was felt to be a mere truce. 

But France was once again free to pursue the plans 
of colonization initiated by the Canadian explorations. 
The king had begun to see something of the importance 
of the wilderness which bore his name. In his instruc- 
tions to the commissioners who were arranging the pre- 
liminaries to the signing of the treaty of Ryswick, he 
had explicitly admonished them above all things not to 
accord the English any of the territory south of the 
limits of Canada. 

Several persons had shown willingness to take up the 
work that had been abandoned at La Salle's death. 
Among these was one of his friends, the Sieur de Re- 



22 LOUISIANA 

monville, a man of birth and means, who had himself 
been as far west as the Illinois. He offered to follow La 
Salle's roTite by the Lakes and down the river, to ex- 
plore the gulf, and hold the mouth of the river till the 
government could send out settlers for a permanent 
colony. The government had the evident intention of 
conducting future explorations for itself, and E-emonville 
was not commissioned, but time was allowed to slip by 
without any definite plan being put into operation. 
Meanwhile, much wild talk, many false reports, and 
some fanciful publications circulated throughout France 
and served to obscure the little real knowledge of the 
territory that was accessible. 

It will be remembered that La Salle was abnormally 
reticent, not only in regard to his plans but even about 
his actual discoveries, and that he gave his accounts only 
to a few friends ; the public at large was therefore al- 
most totally ignorant of the actual details of his travels. 
By the report of the survivors of his last expedition, he 
had failed to find the mouth of the Mississippi. Tonti 
had explored the coast about the mouth of the river after 
La Salle's death, but the French public was ignorant of 
this. So there were many to assert that La Salle had 
never really reached the Gulf on his first descent of the 
stream in 1682. Some admitted the existence of the 
country and the river, but asserted that if they existed 
they must long ago have been occupied by the Spaniards. 
Still other bold theorists of a scientific turn of mind 
held that La Salle had indeed seen the river at some dis- 
tance from the sea, but that it probably had no mouth, 
losing itself in some inland lagoon or tumbling into some 
hole in the earth, else why had the mouth of so great a 
river not been conspicuous on a coast so well-known as 
that of the Gulf of Mexico. Of course it was forgotten 
that though many ships sailed the Gulf, its northern 
coast was not at all known, the peculiar shallowness of 
the water making navigation close to the shore extremely 



FIEST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS 23 

dangerous, and the flatness of the land making any 
breaks in its line scarcely perceptible save at very close 
range. 

The final spur to action was given by the rumor that 
England intended sending out an expedition to take 
possession of Louisiana. It will be remembered that, in 
1680, La Salle had sent two of his men to explore the 
upper Mississippi, and that they had been accompanied 
by the Recollet priest Hennepin. In 1683, Hennepin 
published a description of this journey and an interesting 
account of his life among the savages. This priest was 
never looked upon with much favor by those who knew 
him, for he was obstinate, bigoted, jealous, and pre- 
tentious. There was little of the true priest in his na- 
ture, and his ambitions were those of an explorer. He 
had gone unwillingly upon this expedition, for he was 
jealous of La Salle and felt, or pretended to feel, that La 
Salle wished to get him out of the way upon some ob- 
scure mission while he himself won the sole praise of 
more ambitious achievements. After his return to France 
he had made offers to conduct other exploring parties, 
but he won scant hearing. In 1697-98, therefore, he 
published a new work, dedicated with fulsome flattery 
to William III of England, and purporting to describe a 
voyage which he himself made down the Mississippi two 
years before La Salle. He pretended that his fears of 
the jealous vengeance of La Salle had prevented him 
from making this journey public during his commander's 
life, but he now gave the most elaborate and alluring 
pictures of the river and its value, with detailed descrip- 
tions of the people and the villages. It is now known 
that those jjarts of his work which were not false were 
plagiarized from authentic accounts now accessible, but 
not at the time of the appearance of his book. Never- 
theless, his assertions produced some effect in England 
and even in France, and the French secret agents in 
London soon informed Louis that an English expedition 



24 LOUISIANA 

was actually being prepared to go out under the guidance 
of Hennepin and found colonies in Louisiana. 

The new Minister of Marine, Jerome de Phelypeaux, 
better known by his title of Comte de Pontchartrain/ 
had come to his office by inheritance and had long con- 
sidered schemes of colonial expansion. Two other Cana- 
dians had made offers similar to that of E-emonville, but 
the minister rightly considered that the settlement of the 
lower Mississippi valley could be more easily and per- 
fectly effected by means of an expedition under officers 
of the crown sent directly by sea from France to the 
Gulf of Mexico. If the attempt should be made by land 
from Canada, Tonti, of course, had the first right to com- 
mand ; but in view of the fact that the English were 
about to send ships to the same region and that the Span- 
iards would in all probability attempt to break up any 
establishment, it was thought best that the commander of 
the present party should be a man of address, tact, and 
experience in naval warfare, as well as a practiced woods- 
man. Happily the right man for the task was chosen in 
Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville. He had already 
shown his skill and courage as a naval commander in 
the late war by defeating the English in Hudson's Bay 
and at IS'ewfoundland, and he was a Canadian of a family 
already prominent in the early settlement of Montreal 
and of that strong Norman stock which, grafted upon 
Canadian life, gave France her sturdiest pioneers. He 
was chosen to command the party which was to take 
permanent possession of La Salle's discoveries. Iberville 
armed himself with all the information which he thought 
might serve him. He took with him a copy of Joutel's 
*' Journal Historique," the misleading work of Hennepin, 
the narratives collected by Father Le CI ere from mem- 

1 Seignelay bad been succeeded as Minister of Marine by Louis de 
Phelypeaux, Comte de Pontchartrain, in 1690. He in turn was suc- 
ceeded in September, 1699, as minister and as Comte de Pontchartrain 
by his son Jdrome, Comte de Maurepas. 



FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS 25 

bers of La Salle's first expedition, and whatever informa- 
tion was accessible from the reports of La Salle and Tonti. 
Joutel himself would not go with the party, but Father 
Anastase Douay, one of the survivors of La Salle's last 
attempt, was taken as a possible guide and interpreter to 
the Indians. 

On October 2S, 1698, he set sail from Brest in the 
frigate Badine. He was accompanied by the frigate 
Marin, under the command of the Chevalier de Granges 
de Surgeres, and was joined on the way by the ship of 
war Fran9ois, under Joubert de Chasteaumorant, who 
went along merely to assist the two frigates in case of 
attack. Arrived at St. Domingo, Iberville tried to get 
further knowledge of the Gulf, which, according to the 
Spanish accounts, was full of so many fearful dangers. 
He obtained as guide Laurent de Graff, who had explored 
part of the northern coast and gathered useful informa- 
tion from a captured Flemish pilot whom the Spaniards, 
upon the news of La Salle's expedition, had sent out to 
explore the whole coast, and who had found an excellent 
harbor about fifty leagues west of Apalache Bay, a place 
which Spanish vessels sought for mast poles. 

Iberville determined to make for this harbor. He 
found no one who could offer him any information about 
the Mississippi, but he obtained a French map having a 
more complete outline of the coast than the Spanish one 
provided for him in France. The one guiding fact upon 
which he relied most, however, was a verbal description 
of the appearance of the mouth of the river given him 
years before by La Salle himself. He therefore deter- 
mined to sail along the coast westward from Florida, 
keeping close in to shore, until he found the river or 
until he should reach the site of La Salle's deserted col- 
ony in Texas. He intended to establish forts at suitable 
places and to send for Canadians to hold them. He 
prepared to fight also, for he had learned that four Eng- 
lish ships had been seen in the Gulf with equipment 



26 LOUISIANA 

for founding a colony, so it was suspected, on the Mis- 
sissippi. 

Taking nine hardy filibusters from St. Domingo to 
replace some of his men lost by sickness, Iberville turned 
his course northward. Touching the Florida coast about 
Apalachicola Bay, he went slowly westward along the 
coast, sounding and taking observations as he went. In 
order that no configuration of the coast might escape 
him, and that he might pass no river of importance, he 
sent his lieutenant Lescalette in a small boat to coast 
near the shore. The two frigates kept in as close as pos- 
sible, while the Francois stood farther out to sea. Finally, 
on the 26th of January, 1699, they stumbled upon the 
harbor of Pensacola, garrisoned by a feeble force of some 
three hundred discontented men whom the Spanish had 
taken from the galleys to guard the fort, under the com- 
mand of Don Andres de la E-iola. The French concealed 
the object of their expedition under pretext of searching 
for Canadians sujDposed to be on the coast. From the 
Spanish soldiers, Iberville's young brother, the Sieur de 
Bienville, was shrewdly able to learn that a French col- 
ony would have nothing to fear from the starving garrison 
of Pensacola. 

After remaining a few days and getting what informa- 
tion he could, Iberville proceeded westward along the 
coast, and reached Mobile Bay on the last day of Janu- 
ary. Soundings were made, the islands off the coast ex- 
plored, and an entrance into the harbor was found ; but 
Iberville did not yet wish to make any establishment 
here. He managed to collect some Indians of the neigh- 
borhood, and, with the valuable assistance of Bienville, 
won their friendship and confidence. From them he 
could learn nothing of the tribes which Hennepin re- 
ported as dwelling upon the lower Mississippi ; but from 
their description of a river which they called Malbanchia, 
he concluded that this stream must be the one he sought, 
and as they told him that the journey overland to its. 



FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS 27 

shores was short, he arranged with them to be guided to 
it, intending to descend to its mouth and join his ves- 
sels in the Gulf before attempting to bring them in 
through the passes. As the English were nowhere in 
the neighborhood, the Spaniards weak, the Mississippi 
according to his calculations close at hand, and a safe 
harbor found, he dismissed Chasteaumorant on the 10th 
of February, and allowed him to return to St. Domingo. 

The Indian hunting party upon which he had counted 
for guide service failed him, however, and therefore he 
stocked two barges, each with a canoe in tow, witli 
rations for twenty-five days and ammunition, and taking 
fifty Canadians, sailors, and filibusters, set out along the 
coast on the 27th of February, 1699, to find the mouth 
of the river. In his own boat went Bienville, and in the 
other were Father Douay and the Sieur de Sauvole.-^ 
Surgeres was ordered to remain at Ship Island with the- 
vessels, with orders to return to France in the Marin 
should provisions run short and Iberville not return 
within six weeks. 

The party set out on the morning of the 27th of Feb- 
ruary in gloomy weather. An unfavorable wind coming 
out of the southeast blew against them wet drifts of rain 
and mist. Entering soon the vast labyrinth of low, reed- 
covered islands, gleaming white sand-banks, reefs, mud- 
drifts, shoals, and gravel heaps which the great river has 
hurled for ages from its channel, and which the tides 
and winds of the Gulf have heaped into the fantastic 
shapes of the broken delta, the barges struggled on pain- 
fully, holding the low, deceptive coast of the mainland 
close upon the right, that they might not miss the mouth 
of any river. Slowly they pushed forward during the 
first gray day, and at night they rested upon one of the 
little islands which, like all the others, was overflowed 
by the high tide. The next day, so heavy a fog lay upon 

1 This Sauvole has been confused with Iberville's brother of the 
same name. 



28 LOUISIANA 

the water that they could make scarcely any headway 
through its obscurity and among the maze of sand- 
banks that still surrounded them. Finally, in the after- 
noon, as they had abandoned hope of getting forward 
that day, and as they were pitching their camp upon one 
of the small trembling bars of sand, a fierce storm of 
wind, rain, thunder, and lightning burst upon them. 
Here they passed a night of anxiety, fearful of being 
washed away at any moment. In the morning the storm 
still raged, and the whole day was spent upon the fragile 
bar. They had no wood, and could kindle no fire ; they 
could get no drinking water by digging in the sand ; 
and finally the sea rose over their little foothold, sub- 
merging it to the depth of a foot and a half, so that they 
were forced to build a platform, and crouch upon it 
through another night. On the morning of the 2d of 
March, they were able to make a start in a strong north- 
east wind that drove them along the coast of the main- 
land, which now bent sharply to the southeast. A heavy 
sea was running, breaking over the plunging boats and 
drenching the shivering men. The canoes towed at the 
sterns of the barges were so fiercely beaten about that 
Iberville ordered them to be taken in. In spite of the 
fear of being dashed to pieces, they kept close to the 
main shore, for they felt that they must be nearing 
the mouth of the river which the Indians had described, 
and which they hoped would prove to be the Mississippi. 
As they proceeded, the sheltering islands became fewer, 
and the force of the waves increased. Late in the after- 
noon they found themselves driving upon what seemed 
to be a rocky cape rising jaggedly in threatening black- 
ness from a heavy surge. For three hours they struggled 
in vain to fight off from this danger and round the peril- 
ous cape. Darkness was fast falling. The wind blew 
unabatingly. They felt themselves driven irresistibly 
towards the reefs. Iberville's barge was slightly in ad- 
vance. Anxiously he weighed the alternatives of death 



FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS 29 

in the stormy waters during the night or the faint hope 
of running upon the rocks in the uncertain glimmer of 
light that yet remained, trusting to luck to effect a land- 
ing. There was but little time to hesitate, so, putting 
his boat about, he let the wind at his back drive him 
swiftly towards the cape. Sauvole in his boat followed. 
As they plunged forward, a miracle seemed to be wrought 
before their eyes. The rocky cape broke up into small 
jutting crags with wide stretches of calmer water between 
them. In the uncertain light, they assumed weirdly fan- 
tastic shapes. In the homely words of his journal, Iber- 
ville thus described the scene : *' As I neared the rocks, 
I perceived that there was a river. I passed between two 
of the rocks in twelve feet of water, the sea very heavy, 
where, on nearing the rocks, I found the water sweet 
and with a very great current. These ' rocks ' are of 
petrified wood and drift, and have become black crags 
which resist the sea. They are numberless, jutting out 
of the water, some large, some small, sometimes twenty, 
a hundred, or three and even five hundred paces from 
each other, more or less, running towards the southwest, 
which enabled me to know that this was the River of the 
Palisade, which seemed to me well-named, since at its 
mouth (which is a league and a half from these rocks) it 
appears to be completely barred by them." 

Choosing a pass between the drift heaps where the 
water was somewhat calmer, they pushed into the chan- 
nel of one of the mouths of the river, and found a camp- 
ing-place upon the swampy soil that seemed a haven of 
safety after the dangers they had passed. Iberville knew 
that he had found the river which the Spaniards had 
called the Eiver of the Palisade, and, remembering 
what La Salle had told him, he was almost certain that 
he had found the mouth of the Mississippi. It now 
remained to ascend the river and locate the tribes of 
Indians so eloquently described in the " Relations '' of the 
priests Hennepin and Le Clerc. If the narratives in these 



30 LOUISIANA 

works were true, a short journey would bring him to 
populous villages and a pleasant country where he might 
establish his fort and colony. From the appearance of 
the land about his camp, Iberville must have been led 
to feel somewhat skeptical of the alluring country sup- 
posed to lie just above the mouth of the stream. All about 
him spread a dismal marsh, a flat stretch of trembling 
reed-covered, water-soaked soil, treeless and dishearten- 
ing ; yet, with his keen eye to practical utility, he notes 
in his journal that the concealed and jealously guarded 
mouth of the river would be an admirable refuge for 
privateers and corsairs, whence they might dart out upon 
Spanish merchantmen returning home fatly burdened 
from the Mexican mines. 

Early the next morning, the 3d of March, 1699 
(Mardi Gras), the ascent of the river was begun. On 
both sides of the stream the land continued low and 
marshy, supporting only a prairie of reeds and a growth 
of small willows, until, at a point about six leagues from 
the mouth, woods began to appear. That day an advance 
of twelve leagues was made, but no trace of inhabitants 
was found and no spot of high ground could be seen, for 
the river was rising and the land on both sides was com- 
pletely submerged. Iberville climbed a tall tree at the 
camping-place that night, but beyond the narrow strip of 
woods near the stream he could see nothing but cane- 
brake. As the party continued the journey upstream, 
Bienville paddled in one of the canoes close to the bank 
in hope of finding some sign of Indians, and on the 7th 
fell in with some of the same Bayougoulas whom they 
had met on their hunting trip near Mobile Bay. From 
these friends they obtained guides and provisions and 
learned that the river was the one called by them Mal- 
banchia. As their description of its course and of the 
tribes which dwelt farther up did not at all agree with 
the priestly '^ Kelations," Iberville felt that he must push 
on until he could convince himself that this Malbanchia 



FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS 31 

either was or was not the same as the Mississippi. On 
the 9th he reached the site of ]^ew Orleans, and was 
shown the short portage by which, the Indians went from 
the river to the inlets of the Gulf. 

When the party reached the territory of the Bayougou- 
las and Mongoulachas, a short distance above the present 
Bayou Plaquemines, they were met with great ceremony 
by a deputation from these tribes, who had been apprised 
of their coming. The Mongoulacha chief was a man of 
great dignity, and wore, to the surprise of his visitors, a 
French coat which he said had been given him by the 
'^ Iron Hand," the name by which Tonti was universally 
known throughout the wilderness. During all his jour- 
neys, Bienville had the habit of traveling in the canoe with 
the Indian guides and employing the enforced hours of 
inactivity in learning the different dialects and languages. 
All the way up the river he had kept the Mongoulacha 
guide with him, and was already able to speak and under- 
stand the language with some ease. He therefore got from 
the Mongoulacha chief much information that assured 
Iberville that he was indeed upon the Mississippi, but 
convinced him that slight reliance could be put upon 
the descriptions of the priests. He had not yet been able 
to find a favorable spot for planting his establishment, 
though the '^ Relations " had led him to believe that such 
a place might easily be found near the mouth of the river. 
The whole land was flooded, and the prosperous villages 
of which Hennepin had written so glibly were nowhere 
visible. Now Iberville learned from the Mongoulacha 
chief that the tribes whom he sought dwelt many miles 
farther up the river, and that the journey would be a much 
longer one than he had expected, a serious difficulty, 
since he was already running short of supplies, his men 
worn out, and his ships far away. 

Iberville resolved to set at rest what doubts remained, 
by going up the river five days' journey, as far as the 
Houmas ; but, before he could set out, he was compelled 



32 LOUISIANA 

to make a formal visit to the Indian village and smoke 
incessantly, to his great disgust, for he hated the prac- 
tice. Nevertheless, with as good grace as possible, he 
complied with the significant custom, and made many- 
effective presents of shirts, stockings, blankets, mirrors, 
beads, hatchets, and knives. The Indians gave bear- 
skins and feasted their guests. 

Their village was surrounded by a paling ten feet high. 
Near the centre of the village was a temple, about thirty 
feet in circumference, built of posts driven upright into the 
soil and plastered with clay about half-way up. The roof 
was made of split canes, carefully joined together in a 
cone-shape, and decorated with the painted figures of birds 
and animals. In front of the entrance were two large 
pillars surmounted by a shed. On each side of the door 
were figures of beasts and birds, notably a hideous opos- 
sum. Inside the temple, the sacred fire smouldered fit- 
fully from two logs placed end to end and supposed to 
burn continually. Beyond the fire was a scaffolding on 
which bundles of bear-skins, hides of deer and wild cat- 
tle, and an old bottle given by Tonti, with other offerings 
to their special wunitou, the opossum, whose hideous 
image, done in black and red, glared from the walls in the 
dim light of the temple. The cabins in which the families 
dwelt were of the same general plan as the temple.* 
There were no floors in any of them, and a single open- 
ing at the top served to let out some of the smoke and 
admit a little air. The beds were wooden frames raised 
about two feet from the ground. Over this frame were 
stretched branches of about an arm's thickness for slats. 
Over these were spread mats of split cane, and bear- 
skins were used as coverings. No other furniture was 
found in the cabins save the earthen pots and vessels 
which the women made with some skill. With the ex- 
ception of occasional ornaments the elder men went en- 
tirely naked. Some of the younger bucks, however, wore 
sashes of feathers, which hung at their backs like tails 



FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS 33 

and were strung with jingling bits of metal. The elder 
women were covered from waist to knee by a sort of 
girdle woven of bark fibre into a fringe and stained red 
and white ; but the young girls wore only little packets 
of moss tied around their thighs and supported by narrow 
girdles. Their arms and legs were adorned profusely with 
bracelets and bangles. The hair was worn knotted on top 
of their heads. The Frenchmen found some of these 
girls good-looking, but the effect was spoiled by their 
blackened teeth and the tattooing on their faces and 
breasts. At the time of Iberville's visit, the tribe had 
been greatly reduced by the ravages of small-pox, and all 
about the villages the dead lay swathed in mats upon 
high poles, attracting a hideous multitude of buzzards. 
Provisions were scanty, and comparatively small crops of 
maize and beans were raised by the rude process of culti- 
vation which was carried on with inefficient bone imple- 
ments. A few chickens were seen, but game was scarce 
in that territory, and the only hunting was done by dis- 
tant expeditions, for the hunting bounds of the neigh- 
boring tribes were strictly defined and fiercely maintained. 
After the parley was over, Iberville raised a large 
cross, and set out for the Houmas. On the 17th of 
March, they passed the present site of Baton Kouge. 
Here they saw a red corn-stalk, with the heads of fish 
and bear stuck upon it as an offering from some success- 
ful hunters to the spirits. On the 18th they reached the 
spot known to-day as Point Coupee. At this place the 
river made an immense loop, almost doubling upon itself, 
and the Indian guide pointed out a little bayou about 
six feet wide, by which he said they could cut across 
the neck of the bend, reaching the river again with the 
gain of a day's journey. Bienville entered the bayou 
in his canoe, but found the way barred by a huge pile 
of drift, thirty feet high and five hundred paces thick. 
The Canadian woodsmen of the party made quick work 
of the hard- task set them, and cut a way through the 



34 LOUISIANA 

obstruction by which the barges were slowly towed and 
by which the river itself now flows, adopting Iberville's 
time-saving suggestion. 

At last, on the 20th of March, the party reached the 
Houmas. Here they were met by a ceremonious deputa- 
tion of savages chanting the peace song and bearing little 
white crosses, which they had learned were to the white 
man symbols of peace. After smoking the calumet, 
Iberville presented his gifts and diplomatically intimated 
that he had much finer ones in the boats. At each pre- 
sentation, the Indians arose, thrust out their arms, and 
uttered prolonged grunts. A tremendous feast was given 
at midday, and Iberville was forced to undergo what 
was to him a nauseating amount of smoking ; but after 
the ordeal of fire, food, and eloquence had been suffi- 
ciently endured and the feeling of peace and trust pro- 
perly established, a place was cleared in the village for 
a savage dance in honor of the guests. Singers at one 
side of the open space began the music by beating a 
singular rhythm with rattles. Suddenly a flashing troop 
of girls and young men bounded into the circle and flung 
themselves into one of their symbolic dances. Flashing 
and gorgeous with feathers, tassels, jingling bits of metal, 
and fresh paint, the lithe, almost naked bodies wove 
their savage beauty into a dazzling maze of barbaric color 
and motion. Every movement, every gesture of the 
young warriors expressed strength, courage, and agility. 
The young girls, swaying their slender bodies with a 
softer grace, waved large fans of variously colored feath- 
ers. For three hours in the glittering sunlight and under 
the luminous shadow^s of the forest all the innate spirit 
of poetry and beauty of the savages found free expression 
in this their highest art, symbolizing the wild spirit of 
nature and of the life of which their own wild selves 
were the human incarnation. 

Scarcely had the dancers retired as the evening drew 
on, when a new feast was ushered in, and at its close 



FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS 35 

the yonng warriors, armed with bows, arrows, knives, 
and hatchets, danced a highly effective war-dance in the 
fierce gleam of the fires with an accompanying dance 
of grotesquely leaping shadows, while the gloomy still- 
ness of the wilderness shuddered with the hideous music 
of the war-song. It was midnight before Iberville and 
the chief were left alone for a pow-wow. The chief of 
the Houmas was an old man, almost obsolete, ridicu- 
lously behind the savage fashion, in that his forehead 
had been artificially compressed and flattened, a style of 
head no longer worn by these Indians. The old chief 
gave substantially the same testimony as the Bayougou- 
las and Mongoulachas about the river and the tribes liv- 
ing on the banks. He also said that Tonti had passed 
their village both going to and coming from the mouth, 
yet his descriptions of the tribes and of the river were 
in direct contradiction to the accounts of the Mississippi 
in Le Clerc's ''Establishment of the Faith." Iberville 
felt himself forced to the conclusion to which all cir- 
cumstances had been pointing. He was indeed upon 
the Mississippi, in spite of the fact that it was not at all 
the river pictured by his authorities. At this juncture, the 
Bayougoula guide came forward and confessed that the 
Mongoulacha chief had a letter which Tonti had left 
with him to be given to a white man who should come 
up from the sea. This testimony finally convinced Iber- 
ville that the river did not fork as the priests said and 
the Indians denied, and that he was upon the river which 
Tonti had descended hoping to meet La Salle — there- 
fore the Mississippi. He now determined to make haste 
to return to his ships, securing Tonti's letter on the 
way. He erected a cross in token of possession, while 
the amiable natives, unconscious of the practical sig- 
nificance of the act, marched about the cross and threw 
upon it pieces of tobacco as offerings to the Frenchmen's 
onanitoii, and waved little crosses which they had made 
for themselves in imitation of the Frenchmen's symbol. 



36 LOUISIANA 

Iberville's object was now to make what haste he 
could to reach his ships before he ran out of provisions 
and before Surgeres sailed for France. At this time the 
stream now known as Bayou Manchac, then called by 
the Indians Ascantia, was an outlet of the Mississippi. 
As the barges could not make way through its shallow 
water, they were sent down to the mouth of the river 
in charge of Bienville and Sauvole, who were also in- 
structed to get Tonti's letter from the Mongoulacha 
chief. Iberville himself, with two canoes and four men, 
made his way without guides through the bayou, discover- 
ing and naming the lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain 
in honor of the Minister of Marine. 

On the 31st of March he reached his fleet at Ship 
Island. Bienville and Sauvole arrived by way of the 
mouth of the river only eight hours after their com- 
mander. They had obtained Tonti's letter left for La 
Salle almost thirteen years before. This letter, given 
in part by Iberville in his journal, is dated " from the 
village of the Quinipissas, April 20th, 1685," "^ and 
proved to be the one left by Tonti after the failure of 
his noble effort to come to the aid of his friend and com- 
mander. To one who has followed that heroic storj'-, the 
rude words of the Iron Hand are full of a simple and 
affecting pathos. " Monsieur," says the letter, " having 
found the post upon which you had hung the arms of 
the king knocked down by driftwood, I had another 
one erected on this side of it about seven leagues from 
the sea, and I have left a letter in a tree near by, in a 
hole on the rear side, with an inscription on it (i. e. the 
tree). The Quinipissas having danced the calumet with 
me, I leave this letter with them to assure you of my 
most humble respect and to let you know the news I 
have had of you at the fort, that you had lost a boat and 
that, the savages having plundered your supplies, you 

1 Tonti dated his letter incorrectly. From other documents of his it 
is certain that the letter was written in April, 1686. 



FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS 37 

were fighting with them. Upon this news, I have come 
down with twenty-five Frenchmen, five Chaoiianons,' and 
five Illinois. All the nations have danced the calumet 
with me. These people ^ have a great dread of us since 
you captured this village. I close assuring you that it 
is the greatest disappointment to me to return without 
having the fortune to find you, after two canoes have 
coasted along the shore thirty leagues towards Mexico 
and twenty-five leagues towards the Cape of Florida, 
they being forced to return for lack of fresh water. 
Though we have gotten no information of you nor found 
any trace of you, I do not despair that God will grant 
a full success to your business and your enterprise. I 
hope this with all my heart, for you have not a more 
faithful follower than I, who sacrifice everything to seek 
you." 

There was no longer the shadow of a doubt that 
the Malbanchia was the true Mississippi and that the 
Bayougoulas and Mongoulachas must be identified with 
the Quinipissas. It was now too late to go back and es- 
tablish a fort upon the river, although Sauvole reported 
that he had found a spot about twenty-.five leagues from 
the Grulf where the ground was higher than the overflow 
and where a colony might be planted. Supplies were 
failing and an establishment must be made at once and 
as near the ships as possible, for Iberville had no hope 
of getting his large vessels through the passes of the 
delta. He was forced, therefore, to relinquish for the pre- 
sent his chief desire of planting a colony upon the Missis- 
sippi, and began to cast about for a favorable site near at 
hand. The mouth of the Pascagoula River was considered, 
but found unsuitable. The first attempt to find an en- 
trance into the bay of Biloxi met with no success. He 
thought then of planting his fort upon Lake Pontchar- 
train, but finally, undertaking the sounding of the bay 

1 The village of the Quinipissas was in St. Charles Parish. La Salle 
had been attacked by them here and had severely repulsed them. 



38 LOUISIANA 

of Biloxi himself, he found a seven-foot channel leading 
into a safe harbor between the mainland and the shelter- 
ing island. Running in behind Deer Island, Iberville 
scanned closely the shore of the mainland where now the 
towns of Biloxi and Ocean Springs are built. The gleam- 
ing white sand of the beach receded from the water in 
terraces and was crowned with groves of oaks. Indent- 
ing the shore of the bay was found a small inlet, from 
whose shore a fort might command the whole expanse of 
the harbor. Here, at the point where to-day the railway 
trestle spans the inlet, Iberville laid the lines of Fort 
Maurepas, the first permanent settlement of the French 
on the Gulf coast. With the construction of the fort, 
troubles began. The men were inefficient and the artisans 
knew little of their trades. During Iberville's absence 
on the Mississippi no explorations had been made, and the 
country about them was unknown, until the indefatigable 
Bienville began to hunt through the forests with his hardy 
Canadians and explore the neighboring waterways in his 
pirogue with Indian hunters. 

Iberville's return to France at the end of June, 1699, 
set at rest many fears of Spanish opposition, but the 
danger to be apprehended from the English colonies and 
English interest in the Mississippi was very real. News 
had already come from Canada ^ that a project was on 
foot among persons in New York and New England to 
send a colony of Huguenot refugees and Hollanders to the 
Mississippi by sea during the summer, upon the strength 
of Father Hennepin's assertions. A little later, it was 
reported that King William, in order to dispose of some 
of the Huguenots who had taken refuge in England, had 
actually sent out six shiploads, presumably for the Mis- 
sissippi. 

Feeling the necessity of prompt action, Iberville drew 
up a full memorial ^ to the government, in which he stated 

1 Calli^res to the Minister, May 2, 1699, in Margry. 

2 Given hi Margry, iv, 308 et seq. 



FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS 39 

the question clearly in practical form and outlined a sane 
and far-sighted policy of permanent colonization. The 
young minister was vastly interested in such things from 
a theoretical standpoint. Under the tutelage of that great 
genius and noble man, Vauban, Jerome Pontchartrain's 
mind had been trained to the conception of large political 
ideals. Both of these men were convinced that the very 
existence of French power in America depended upon the 
holding of the territory discovered by La Salle. Iberville 
was given much encouragement and full equipment for 
a second voyage of exploration. Two subsidiary expedi- 
tions were also ordered to go out at the same time. One, 
under the Canadian geologist Le Sueur, was to ascend the 
Mississippi in search of mines and a certain famed hill 
of green earth reported to be in the country of the Sioux. 
The Sieur de Remonville was also sent out to conduct 
independent explorations. At La Kochelle, Iberville 
picked up some trusty Canadians who had been with him 
at Hudson's Bay, and he also took with him his brother 
Chateauguay, a young fellow of seventeen, and the Sieurs 
de Boisbriant and St. Denis, both famous in the early 
annals of Louisiana. 

Unfortunately, the minister was of an imaginative turn 
of mind and had been influenced by the baits cast out by 
the many promulgators of wild schemes for fortune hunt- 
ing. Therefore, in his written orders given to Iberville, 
one finds, along with the more practical directions taken 
from the explorer's sensible suggestions, minute instruc- 
tions for the domestication of wild cattle for the sake of 
their wool and urgent commands to look well into the 
matter of reputed pearl fisheries in the Gulf and to bear 
in mind that " the grand affair is the discovery of mines." 
Iberville was even instructed to find out whether the 
country might not do for silk-raising, and one catches a 
faint hint of some idyllic fancy of the romantic young 
minister, worthy of Chateaubriand himself, in the sug- 
gestion that the Indian girls and children might be em- 



40 LOUISIANA. 

ployed at the pastoral task of rearing silkworms, as a 
light and agreeable work suitable to their tender nature. 
This strain of fantasy well shows the real spirit in which 
such attempts as Iberville's were encouraged. France at 
large had not yet grasped the true spirit of colonization 
which Iberville had said was instinctive with the English. 
France still dreamed of an El Dorado of mines and pearl 
fisheries. In the face of the danger that threatened, cor- 
ruption within and war from without, the whole nation, 
still basked in the rays of the Sun-King, and nothing short 
of marvels might distract their attention from this splen- 
dor and turn it towards the New World, although Iber- 
ville and some others had said rude words on the sub- 
ject. To the end, up to the very time of sordid necessity 
and the struggle for very existence, France remained the 
dreamer of the nations and La Salle the type of her ex- 
plorers. She might produce an Iberville, but she would 
not listen to him. He did not dazzle her with impossible 
possibilities, as did La Salle, Le Sueur, and La Hontan. 
He was not as interesting as that arch-liar Matthieu 
Sagean. So where Iberville wished to build forts and 
plant the crops and homes of a sturdy peasantry, France 
sent him to gather the wool of wild cattle, the ore of 
non-existing mines, and the worthless pearls of the Gulf, 
He bored her with his homely sense. He planned like an 
Englishman. 

When he reached Biloxi, on the 8th of January, 1700, 
he had from Sauvole a better report, on the whole, than 
might perhaps have been expected, though no crops had 
been raised and though but little had been done towards 
permanent establishment. His brother Bienville, how- 
ever, had been actively at work exploring the country 
and winning the friendship of the savages, Active, brave, 
hardy, and tactful, the young Canadian, then scarcely 
twenty years of age, had scoured the w^ilderness, going 
from tribe to tribe, learning their dialects and customs, 
and gaining their respect and confidence. He had also 



FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS 41 

made a journey to the Mississippi and explored the 
Ouacha (Bayou Plaquemines). As he was descending 
the Mississippi on his return, in September, 1699, at the 
point now called English Turn, he came suddenly upon 
an English vessel lying in midstream. He paddled his 
canoe alongside and was taken aboard. The expedition 
proved to be part of that which had left England in 
1698 with three shiploads of Huguenots. They had 
touched at South Carolina and many had remained there. 
The present party was in search of the Mississippi and 
had cruised the Gulf in vain about the point where 
Hennepin's book and the account falsely attributed to 
Tonti had led them to believe the mouth would be 
found. They had entered the passes and ascended the 
stream in the belief that this was the river they sought, 
judging from its size, yet they were by no means sure, 
for its appearance did not tally with the description in 
Hennepin's book which served to guide them. Bienville 
boldly asserted the French claim to the country, and 
pretended that he had a force at hand sufficient to main- 
tain it. Bather surprisingly, the English gave up their 
intention and sailed away, though they too advanced 
a claim to the river by virtue of supposed explora- 
tions made by one Wood ^ some fifty years before that 
time. 

As soon as a start could be made, Iberville himself 
took sixty men in two barges through Lake Pontchar- 
train and up a little bayou (probably St. Jean) which 
he says was about four leagues below the Iberville on 
Bayou Manchac. Thence a short portage over the pre- 
sent site of New Orleans brought him to the Mississippi. 
A little above the portage was a deserted Indian village 
on a ridge of land not reached by the overflow. Here, 
with seed brought from St. Domingo, Iberville made the 
first planting of sugar-cane. 

1 See Code's Description of Carolana. Also II French's Historical 
Collections of Louisiana. 



42 LOUISIANA 

Early in February, 1700, a small blockhouse, with 
stockade and powder magazine, was erected on the river 
about eighteen leagues from the mouth, and then the 
party set out on the second journey of exploration up the 
river. Tonti, who had learned of the settlement, had 
come down with a party of Canadian Doyageurs to offer 
his assistance, and undertook the mission of going among 
the powerful tribe of the Chickasaws to counteract the 
hostile influence which English traders were already ex- 
ercising upon that warlike nation against the French. 

Iberville had intended to ascend Red Kiver and visit 
the country of the Natchitoches and the Caddodaquious, 
but a wandering band of Little Tensas told him that 
the stream was unnavigable and that they themselves 
always went overland by a trail which led out from the 
village of the Big Tensas just above the Natchez. Thither 
Iberville led his party, and spent some time among these 
most interesting of all the southern tribes. He was pre- 
vented, however, from making further explorations by 
a severe lameness, and accordingly dispatched Bienville 
with twenty Canadians and a few Indians to explore Bed 
Biver. Beturning to the little fort on the lower river, he 
was seized with a slow fever and lay ill there for some 
weeks. In fact, he had not long been sufficiently im- 
proved to go on to Biloxi when, on the 18*th of May, 
1700, Bienville returned to Fort Maurepas from the Bed 
Biver country. 

This expedition of Bienville greatly enlarged the 
French knowledge of an important portion of Louisiana. 
Leaving the village of the Tensas in March, he had 
taken the overland route pointed out to him. On the first 
day's march, he had found the country overflowed, and 
his men were forced to wade through water up to their 
knees. Many rivers were crossed on rafts or by swim- 
ming, in spite of the danger which was threatening by 
the presence of swarming " crocodiles. '^ The same obsta- 
cles blocked the whole progress. The weather was cold, 



FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS 43 

and rain fell in torrents for days together. Often the men 
stumbled unawares into streams hidden under the general 
overflow. Bienville, who was a short man, notes in his 
journal his envy of the advantage which tall men possessed 
in this pastime. Often at night no place could be found 
to pitch the camp, and the men, wet and shivering, 
perched dismally in the trees " to get warm." Hunting 
was good, and therefore provisions were plentiful, but 
the men soon began to fall ill from the strain of such 
marching and exposure. On the 28th of March they 
reached Red River, at the village of the Ouachitas. The 
village was poor, and little comfort was to be found in 
it. The river at this place was, as Bienville reports, 
'' about one hundred and eighty paces wide and as swift 
as the Mississippi." As the party pushed on, the rain 
still fell. Hunting now failed and provisions ran short. 
It was almost impossible to get even corn from the few 
wretched Indians. For days the march led through water 
waist high. Many dense cane-brakes had to be cut 
through. Many a day the party got forward only three 
or four miles. " Surely," writes Bienville, " this is fine 
work to temper the fires of youth ; but we never leave 
off singing and laughing to show the guide that we do 
not mind fatigue and that we are a different sort of men 
from the Spaniards." Finally he met a party of Natch- 
itoches and got from them some information about their 
country, but did not visit their village. He made an at- 
tempt to reach the town of the Yataches, but the swollen 
current and the flooded land discouraged him, especially 
as his men were now exhausted, as they were confronted 
with the danger of starvation, and as only twenty days 
remained to get back to the ships. He therefore resolved 
to turn back, for the Indians now told him that there 
w^ere no mines in the country and that, some five leagues 
west of the Caddoes, the Spaniards had a large settle- 
ment of white, black, and mulatto men and women. 
The return was made by ri(^er in pirogues. On the 11th 



44 LOUISIANA 

of May he reached the fort on the Mississippi and on 
the 18th arrived at Biloxi. 

Iberville was physically unable to undertake further 
exploration. Still sick of the clinging fever, he left the 
colony in the charge of Sauvole, and set sail for France 
at the end of May, 1700. 

The summer wore away uneventfully, and the winter 
passed for the little garrison on Biloxi Bay without much 
activity of any sort. In the spring of 1701, however, 
the colony Avas enlivened by the arrival of a character 
who, though unimportant in a practical sense, never- 
theless should have a place in any record of the times 
as a type of the imaginative adventurers who found too 
ready a hearing. This fellow, a Canadian, Matthieu 
Sagean by name, while serving in a company of marines 
in France, told a marvelous yarn of a discovery which 
he had kept secret for twenty years. As he could not 
write, his narrative was taken down from dictation and 
sent to Pontchartrain. It is still preserved among the 
archives of the Bibliotheque Rationale. -^ 

Sagean claimed to have discovered, somewhere to the 
southwest of the Falls of St. Anthony, a marvelous coun- 
try which he called the land of the Acaanibas — a land 
of entrancing natural charm, material wealth, happiness, 
and spiritual prosperity, ruled in gorgeous splendor by a 
king who maintained all the state and displayed most of 
the characteristics of Solomon. In this paradise, a balmy 
climate induced a long life free from ills and physi- 
cians ; all the fruits of every zone flourished here in 
wanton profusion the year round ; and the woods were a 
huntsman's dream of heaven. At a stroke this circum- 
stantial liar outdid all the inventors of ideal republics 
and blissful islands since Plato. Into that one felicitous 
spot he crowded all the means of earthly happiness. No 
pleasure of sense was lacking to these blessed inhabit- 
ants ; they lived in an ideal democracy, for in it all men 
1 Reprinted by Shea, and by Margry in his sixth volume. 



FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS 45 

were free and equal, and yet possessed a king who was a 
brilliant though harmless symbol of that visible power 
which the many-headed beast most adores ; and thus, 
living in idyllic peace with themselves and all the world, 
these favored ones drifted through life exempt from 
fleshly ills and mortal cares to an easy death, a mere 
unobtrusive exit, as it were, untroubled by metaphysical 
doubts or theological terrors, for their sole belief touch- 
ing the momentous problem of existence was contained, 
according to Sagean, in the theory that the species of 
monkey which they called Bichilly, or, being inter- 
preted, " beautiful beast," was their ancestor, and that 
to his form they might return after their human term. 

For a time these extraordinary statements were re- 
ceived with credence in France, though Le Sueur, who 
knew Sagean as well as the country which he pre- 
tended to have visited, flatly denied the possibility of 
the whole tale; but Pontchartrain sent Sagean out to 
Louisiana with a recommendation to Sauvole. The land 
of the Acaanibas, however, was never rediscovered, and 
Sagean seems to have lapsed quietly into obscurity when 
he found himself among so many blunt pioneers who all 
knew him to be a liar. Le Sueur, moreover, had just 
returned from extensive explorations in the country west 
of the upper Mississippi, in the same direction in which 
Sagean pretended to have gone. Needless to say, he had 
not seen the land of the Acaanibas, nor, by the way, had 
his own schemes been rewarded with very substantial re- 
sults; for his famous green hill was not verdigris, as he 
supposed, but only a coloration caused by the presence 
of silicate of iron in the soil. Nevertheless, he shipped 
to France some four thousand pounds of the stuff together 
with some specimens of copper. 

Meanwhile, the king and France were occupied with 
events of such importance that the little band of pio- 
neers in Louisiana was forgotten. Iberville, too, was 
prevented from returning to America and continuing the 



46 LOUISIANA 

prosecution of his plans by his duty to his country as an 
officer in her navy, for to all eyes the approach of a great 
war was evident. Louis had roused the English by sup- 
port of James the Pretender, son of the dethroned James 
the Second. He had stirred the Dutch to resistance by 
his encroachments upon their frontier. He had antago- 
nized Austria by his successful plan to obtain the throne 
of Spain for his grandson, the Duke of Anjou. After 
the young duke had been crowned and Louis had de- 
clared that there were no longer any Pyrenees, in the 
first general belief that France could now control Spain, 
Pontchartrain did indeed bethink him sufficiently of 
Louisiana to have Iberville prepare a memorial which he 
hoped would induce Spain to relinquish Pensacola to 
France. This sophistical document was presented to 
Philip early in 1701, but was proudly and courteously 
rejected by the Junta, to whom the king had referred it. 
No actual help was sent to the colony, however, and the 
colony was unable to help itself. Sauvole, as a born 
Frenchman, expressed his contempt of the Canadians. 
The Canadians showed their contempt for him by refus- 
ing to obey his orders. The priest, Du Rhu, meddled 
between officers and men. But all suffered alike from 
famine. Then came the fever through the trying sum- 
mer of 1701, and Sauvole took to nursing his erstwhile 
insubordinates, venting his irritation the while in his 
journal, and swearing that the Canadians deserved no 
consideration, since they had brought the sickness upon 
themselves by their excesses. In August, Sauvole him- 
self was stricken and died. Bienville assumed command 
of the colony. 

Not until December, 1701, was Iberville able to visit 
his settlement. Then he ordered Bienville to build Fort 
Louis de la Louisiane and start a new town at what was 
thought to be a more favorable site, at Twenty- Seven 
Mile Bluff, on Mobile Biver.^ Early in the spring he 

1 See Hamilton's Colonial Mobile for accessible and complete accounts 



I 



FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS 47 

put up a magazine and station for the landing of immi- 
grants on Massacre (now Dauphin) Island, off Mobile 
Bay. In April he returned to France and demanded new 
colonists, especially women, without whom the settlement 
would never be anything but a camp of adventurers. 

Unfortunately for his plans and for the prosperity of 
Louisiana, he was destined never again to see his cher- 
ished settlements. In May, 1702, the Grand Alliance, re- 
presenting every branch of the Teutonic race, had declared 
war against the leagued powers of France, Spain, and 
Bavaria. The strong sentiment of hostility in England 
against Louis's ambitious pretensions had led Queen Anne 
to follow the policy of William III and send Marlbor- 
ough into the field. France was already beginning to 
taste the first bitterness of defeat and failure. Her danger 
was great. The days of the Sun-King's glory were be- 
ginning to shorten and to cast long shadows. No colonists 
could be sent to Louisiana, and Iberville himself, enfee- 
bled as he yet remained from his last illness, went into 
war service as captain of a vessel. 

Remote as were the issues of the war of the Spanish 
Succession, the American colonies of France and England 
took a half-hearted part in it ; but on this side of the 
ocean, Queen Anne's war was merely a feeble reflection 
of the terrible struggle that shook the nations of Europe. 
In the South, within Bienville's territory, something of 
the effect of the war was felt. The young commander, 
expecting an invasion of the British, had made his estab- 
lishments as strong as his means allowed, and he had 
continued, with great success, Iberville's policy of con- 
ciliating and consolidating the Indian tribes, though often 
the constant drain of necessary gift-making reduced his 
own neglected followers to the verge of starvation. In 
spite of the fact that he had to deal with some of the 
most warlike nations of North America, he had hitherto 

of the Gulf colonies. Also journals of Iberville, Sauvole, and Bienville, 
with other papers in Margry's collection. 



48 LOUISIANA 

conducted his whole course of exploration and coloniza- 
tion without a clash. But now the English trader from 
the Carolinas, with his pack of goods, had gone among 
the outlying trihes, doing the same work of insidious hos- 
tility among them against the French that the Jesuit 
missionary had accomplished among the northern trihes 
against the English. It was the English trader with his 
cheaper and more attractive merchandise who bought, 
bullied, and fought his way to success and broke the in- 
fluence of the more beloved French. The French had 
depended chiefly upon their priests to hold the Indians, 
but the priests had become largely the cause of the final 
misfortune, for they jealously fought the traders of their 
own nation, and in order to hold their personal influence 
over the Indians, often refused to teach them French or 
win their allegiance to the civil authorities. Sooner or 
later the commander of every French post found them a 
thorn in the side and an obstacle to success. Unhappily 
the king had fallen so completely under ecclcvsiastical in- 
fluence that even his petty officers had at least to '' pro- 
fess '' his creed and tolerate the changed conduct of the 
missionaries as far as endurance was possible. When the 
war broke out and the English felt free to make more 
open efforts to detach the friendly savages, Bienville 
soon found that he had small means to oppose them. 
While an English fleet hung about the Gulf and kept 
the colony in a state of anxiety, the Indians were incited 
to petty raids. The first outrages were committed upon 
the more faithful of the missionaries. Father Davion, 
driven in from the Tunicas, told of the murder of the 
venerable Foucault by the Coroas. Other missionaries 
and many converted Indians were massacred. Bienville 
retaliated, after the New England method, by offering to 
reward his allies for the scalps of the enemy, and encour- 
aged the intrepid coureurs de hois to deal the harshest 
vengeance wherever the chance offered. In fact, Louisi- 
ana in this war found herself in the same position with 



FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS 49 

reference to the English colonies as New England did to 
Canada, each being similarly exposed to the massacres to 
which their enemies bribed the savages. 

In the summer of 1703, the internal condition of the 
colony was somewhat improved by the arrival of twenty- 
three young women of good character and appearance. 
These, with a few artisans, a parish priest, and a curate, 
helped to give the little post something of the appearance 
of a village. But the vessel that brought them brought 
also the yellow fever from Havana, where it had touched 
on the way over. Thirty of the new soldiers and half of 
the crew died, and Bienville had to give twenty men from 
his feeble garrison to assist in getting the ship back to 
France. In all, about two thirds of the little settlement 
fell victims to the pest. But the greatest loss of all was 
that of the brave and good Tonti, who happened to be 
then visiting the fort on the Mobile. No pioneer of 
France had a record more full of heroism and work than 
his, and yet none had so modestly effaced himself from 
publicity or kept so absolutely clear from the intrigues 
which disfigure every other career, even the most bril- 
liant. Thus it is perhaps fitting that this simple yet 
great and noble-hearted man should lie almost forgotten 
in an unknown grave, having laid down his life as he 
laid down his work, without a word or the desire or ex- 
pectation of praise or reward. 

The record of the colony now becomes only a list of 
Bienville's anxieties and cares and a scandalous memorial 
of the bickerings and intrigues of the royal commis- 
sary La Salle and the Cure La Vente against their com- 
mander.^ When the ship Aigle came to Mobile in the 
summer of 1706, she received and bore away to France a 
sulphurous cargo of slanders and accusations from the 
pens of La Salle and La Vente against Bienville, who, 
in his turn, had a full list of complaints and requests. 

1 See chapter xiii of Miss Grace King's Bienville for a full review 
of these disputes. 



50 LOUISIANA 

But now in September, Chateauguay, returning from 
Havana, brought the disheartening news that Iberville 
had died there in July, while organizing a powerful ar- 
mament to attack the Carolina coast and finally fulfill his 
old ambition of gaining complete domination of the Gulf 
of Mexico. 

The colony was now without a protector. The dreary 
records of disputes and the conflicting reports and com- 
plaints that still crowd the Archives de la Marine and 
swell Margry's huge volumes proved nothing but the 
futility of the national colonial system. The report of 
the Intendant D'Artagnette, who was sent out to inves- 
tigate the charges brought by the cabal against Bienville, 
is a convicting commentary upon the extent to which 
France had profited by the explorations of La Salle and 
the labor and counsels of Iberville and Bienville. In 
the whole colony there were only eleven men not in the 
direct employ of the king, a garrison of one hundred 
and twenty-four (counting priests), twenty-eight women, 
twenty-five children, about fifty cows, and a few pigs 
and chickens. 

This report led Pontchartrain to investigate in another 
direction. The government had been constantly sending 
money to the colonies, and yet the colonies complained 
that no money had been received, as indeed the wretched 
condition of every settlement evidenced. The investiga- 
tion proved that the colonial subsidies stuck in the hands 
of the French officials charged with the duty of disburs- 
ing them. To such extent had this corruption spread that 
France now had not a single self-supporting colony and 
no navy to defend her against that of England. 

Pontchartrain was now eager to find some one to take 
Louisiana off" his hands. The Sieur de Bemonville was 
induced to go out in 1711 with a shipload of sup- 
plies. He found that floods and the danger of Indian 
attacks had forced the colonists to abandon the first fort 
at Twenty-Seven Mile Bluff on the Mobile and remove 



FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENTS 51 

the settlement to the site of the present city of Mobile. 
During the long interval of neglect, the abandoned peo- 
ple had suffered from famine, disease, and discontent 
until many of the soldiers began to desert and go over 
to the English in Carolina. Every year Bienville had 
been forced to quarter parties of his young men among 
the Indians. Penicaut in his journal describes his jaunt 
with some merry companions among the Natchez and the 
relief from the dreary restraint and suffering of the set- 
tlement. They were gay enough — these parties — the 
dancing and frolicking with the Indian girls and the 
hunting expeditions, and they make a fascinating tale in 
his sprightly pages, but they did not make a sound col- 
ony. Bienville complains that, at the first mention of 
work, his young men would desert to the woods. It was 
the old story of Canada repeating itself. 

When D' Artagnette went back to France, he presented 
a plan which had long been the cherished hope of Bien- 
ville, namely, to transfer the colony to a site chosen by 
Bienville on the Mississippi, where the rich soil would 
easily enable a few colonists of the right sort, farmers and 
mechanics, to support themselves and form the basis of a 
stable settlement. But Pontchartrain had had enough of 
Louisiana, and just at this time he had found a man who 
was willing to relieve him of the entire colony. 



CHAPTEK III 

JOHN LAW AND THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE SEAT OF 

GOVERNMENT AT NEW ORLEANS 

Antoine Crozat came as a veritable messenger of 
Providence when he offered to take Louisiana as a com- 
mercial speculation. A bargain was soon struck. Crozat, 
a man of great wealth and capacity for business, wanted 
title, seignorial rights, landed estates vaster than, those 
of princes of the blood royal. Pontchartrain now wanted 
little more than to be rid of the expense of maintaining 
an unprofitable colony ; for France was in a condition 
of depression that had been inconceivable a few years 
before. The state was burdened with debt, the people 
loaded with taxation, the resources of the country crip- 
pled, and even military prestige was fast sinking before 
the victories of Marlborough and Prince Eugene. 

On September 14, 1712, the king granted to Crozat 
the exclusive right of trade for fifteen years free of duty, 
throughout all the territory lying between the Illinois 
and the Gulf and extending from the English colonies 
westward to the Spanish colonies. Whatever mines 
might lie within these vague limits were granted in per- 
petuity, subject to forfeiture if abandoned. Whatever 
land might be reclaimed and cultivated and whatever 
manufactures might be established were also granted upon 
the same terms. Crozat was also given the exclusive right 
to trade in all hides and furs except beaver-skins — Can- 
ada being thus protected ; and all other persons caught 
trading without the proprietor's orders were to be subject 
to confiscation. He was furthermore allowed the privilege 



I 



JOHN LAW AND THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE 53 

of sending one ship annually to the Guinea coast for negro 
slaves to cultivate his lands or to be sold to the colonists. 
On his part, Crozat bound himself to send each year two 
shiploads of settlers, and after nine years was to bear all 
the expenses of the colony including the pay of officers 
and garrisons, but until that time the king agreed to 
contribute fifty thousand livres a year. The laws, edicts, 
and ordinances of France and the custom of Paris were 
to serve as the laws of Louisiana, and the executive func- 
tion was intrusted to a council appointed by the king from 
Crozat^s nomination. Two of Crozat's accredited agents 
were to represent his interests in this body. 

In order to start with a clean slate, the new manage- 
ment sent out, in May, 1713, a new set of officials with 
Lamothe Cadillac as governor. The superior council, 
appointed for three years, consisted of the governor, the 
intendant, and Crozat's two agents. 

For a brief time, now, one reads, in the colonial jour- 
nals and correspondence, of the arrival of ships, men, and 
merchandise. There was also an immediate, though 
slight, increase of population. But the. fatal restrictions 
laid upon trade began at once to be felt, not only in the 
colony, but by the great speculator himself. He had 
planned to sell all supplies to the settlers and to buy of 
them peltries for the European trade, and, to drive better 
bargains, had obtained monopolies. However, his mo- 
nopolies did him no good, for the people had no money 
to buy his over-priced merchandise, and he offered such 
low prices for peltries, in reliance upon the rigidity of the 
trade laws, that the independent coureurs sold their furs 
in the woods to English traders at a better profit, in 
spite of the war and in defiance of the king's ordinance. 
Even among the friendly Indians, the French lost ground 
to the Carolina trader, who ofiered better goods at cheaper 
prices than did Crozat's agents, and paid more for what 
they bought. Even the pitiful trade in vegetables with 
the Spaniards at Pensacola ceased, for the colonists were 



54 LOUISIANA 

forbidden to own sea-going vessels. Finally, when the 
peace signed at Utrecht opened the Spanish ports to the 
English and closed them against the French, Crozat was 
deprived of his hope of initiating a profitable trade with 
Mexico. Moreover, the officials sent out had been un- 
fortunately chosen. Cadillac got himself cordially hated 
by the Canadians and Indians. Even Bienville threw 
obstacles in the governor's way. So Bienville, doubtless 
to his own relief, was sent to take command of the post 
on the Mississippi. In this part of the province, which 
to his mind was the proper field for colonization, there 
were but few French. A few stragglers were scattered 
among the Tunicas, Natchez, Yazoos, and Bayougoulas ; 
St. Denis had been sent by Cadillac in 1714 to take pos- 
session of the Natchitoches country, in order to anticipate 
a rumored Spanish advance in that direction and to es- 
tablish, if possible, a contraband trade with Mexico by 
the overland route through Texas ; but, west of the bay 
of Biloxi, the French had at this time only one establish- 
ment, the little fort on the lower Mississippi built by 
Iberville's order. 

Bienville had been instructed to establish a post 
among the Natchez, but he found that these Indians had 
been offended by a breach of etiquette on the part of 
Cadillac, and were waylaying, robbing, and even killing 
whatever straggling hunters or traders they might pick 
up on the river or in the forest. Thus the task of sub- 
duing and punishing the mistaken Natchez fell, of course, 
upon Bienville, but he could extort from the governor 
only the insufficient force of thirty-five men. Neverthe- 
less, confident in his long experience with the savages, 
he set out with his little army, and, by a treacherous 
stratagem worthy of savage guile, succeeded in getting 
possession of eight of the principal leaders of the tribe, 
including the chief Sun and two of his brothers. By a 
judicious and threatening use of these sacred hostages he 
obtained the heads of the chiefs who had ordered the 



JOHN LAW AND THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE 55 

murder of the Frenchmen, and forced the tribe to allow 
the erection of a fort at their chief town, and even to fur- 
nish all the lumber required for its construction. By 
the end of August, 1716, Fort Eosalie of the Natchez 
was erected and garrisoned. 

Bienville returned to Mobile in October, to learn with 
joy that Cadillac had been recalled and that he himself 
had been put in command until the arrival of a new 
governor. 

He was again slighted, however, and his long service 
ignored in the appointment of De PEpinay to succeed 
Cadillac, and he was not to be consoled by the gift of 
the Cross of St. Louis and the grant of Horn Island. 
So one is not surprised to learn that after De I'Epinay's 
arrival, in 1717, the old story of mutual slander and 
complaint began again. But now the blind policy of 
bottling the feeble trade of the colony had finally pro- 
duced a complete atrophy of all activity, and the abso- 
lute drain of expenses and the failure of any profit bore 
so heavily upon the proprietor that in 1717 he prayed to 
be released from his agreement. This release was readily 
granted, for a newer, a wilder, a more fascinating scheme 
had been now presented to the bankrupt government. 

Louis Xiy had died in September, 1715, and the 
little Duke of Anjou, as Louis XV, had ascended the 
throne under the regency of the Duke of Orleans. The 
death of the great king seemed to remove in a breath 
the glamour which the magic of his personality had cast 
upon the eyes of men. The poverty, the tottering weak- 
ness, the rottenness of the nation, now stood out suddenly 
before the eyes of even the French with the stark out- 
lines of a deserted ruin against the failing glow of a 
sunset sky. The soul that had created and animated 
this most dazzling incarnation of monarchy had gone for- 
ever. The decadence of the old order was suddenly and 
startlingly seen to be almost complete ; and the new had 
but beo-un to stir before its birth of blood. The icon- 



56 LOUISIANA 

oclastic ideas of the E,evolution were beginning to be 
felt, but vaguely, incoherently, as fear, discontent, un- 
certainty. Meanwhile, France was to suffer ; the treasury 
M'as empty, the army unpaid, the country barren with 
deserted houses and hideous with a starving peasantry. 
Total bankruptcy seemed to threaten the government. 
The Duke of Orleans did indeed surprise even his 
friends, perhaps, with a brilliant, though impractical, be- 
ginning at reform. Twenty-five thousand men were dis- 
charged from the army ; but the unloading of such a horde 
of the unemployed upon the country merely increased 
the general beggary, and even the offer to exempt any 
discharged soldier from taxes for six years if he would 
reclaim a deserted farm failed to people the rural desert 
or to bring crops from the hungry fields. An examina- 
tion of the public accounts proved them to be corrupt 
beyond all conception. An attempt was made to raise 
money by enforcing penalties and fines upon the delin- 
quent tax-farmers (traitants) ; but though some four 
thousand of these harpies who preyed upon the starving 
peasantry and robbed the nation of even this unjust 
revenue were found to be liable to the various penalties 
of death, torture, or fine, none of these punishments, 
save a fine in a few cases, were ever inflicted, and influ- 
ence, as of old, bought off the judges of guilt. Nothing 
was remedied ; the corruption was too deep. In addition 
to this weakness, Louis XIV had left to France a debt 
estimated at two billion five hundred million or even 
three billion livres. To raise the money for his con- 
quests and his palaces, his art, his refinements, and his 
luxurious vices, he had pledged the revenues of the nation 
for several years to come. The Eegent was therefore 
forced to scale down the debt by a partial bankruptcy, as 
it were, and to place the remainder in the form of notes 
{billets cVetat), but these fell at once to a hopeless dis- 
count of seventy per cent, and the remedy for the beg- 
gary of the country was as far off as ever. 



JOHN LAW AND THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE 57 

There now appeared upon the scene, John Law, a 
Scotch gambler and financial schemer, who had been 
turned away witli his plausible juggling of figures by 
Louis XIV. and by every nation of Europe. The E-e- 
gent, however, had a natural affinity for such miraculous 
strokes of fortune as Law promised to invoke, and his 
own mobile imagination was kindled by the luring offers 
of the Scotchman. In the midst of a really hopeless 
difficulty. Law came offering to transform at a word the 
chaos into order, the poverty into wealth. Law was first 
allow^ed, as an experiment, to establish a bank in May, 
1716, with a capital stock of 6,000,000 livres, divided 
into shares of 500 livres each. This venture, being well 
secured, well managed, and limited to the legitimate 
operations which make the modern bank successful, won 
an immediate and convincing success. The E-egent was 
encouraged to embark further. Law was allowed to form 
the Company of the West to control Louisiana upon 
practically the same terms as had been granted to Crozat, 
to exploit the colony, settle it, and work its supposed 
mines of gold and silver. By means of this company 
and the bank. Law's plausible theory promised to rid 
France of its outstanding debt, which, it will be remem- 
bered, had been placed in notes or billets d'etat. In 
September, 1717, the Company of the West was organized 
with an indefinite capital, limited by an edict of the fol- 
lowing December (1717) to one hundred million livres ^ 
capital stock divided into shares of five hundred livres 
each. These shares could be bought and paid for only 
by the government's billets d'etat. Thus the new com- 
pany nominally assumed a large part of the public debt, 
though the same creditors, the holders of government 
notes, were the real creditors then as they had been all 
along. As these notes were paid to the Company for 
stock, the Company surrendered them in sums of 1,000,- 
000 livres to the government and received in return 

1 The livre and the franc were of substantially the same value. 



58 LOUISIANA 

rentes or bonds in perpetuity bearing four per cent in- 
terest on the principal. Thus, reasoned the plausible 
Law, the Company would be certain of a revenue of four 
per cent on its capital ; the people would be eager to 
take the stock, especially the creditors of the govern- 
ment holding its depreciated billets cV etat ; and the 
government would be freed from the immediate pressure 
of so much of its debt as was thus occupied. As an ad- 
ditional inducement to investors, the Company held out 
the prospect of dazzling profit from the exploitation of 
its Mississippi concession. The Company could grant 
lands to settlers free of feudal obligation and exempt 
from taxation during the term of its franchise, which 
was to run for twenty-five years. On its part, it agreed 
to import six thousand white colonists and three thou- 
sand negro slaves. One wise departure from the usual 
narrow scheme of colonization was made in encouraging 
the investment of foreign capital and the immigration 
of foreign settlers, by securing their property from con- 
fiscation in case of war and from the droit cVauhaine^ 
or resumption by the crown of lands and other property 
left by an alien at death. 

Law was made chief director of the Company, and 
during the first two years the management of colonial 
affairs was to be intrusted to a board of directors ap- 
pointed by the king. After the expiration of two years, 
the directors were to be elected by the stockholders, each 
holder being entitled to one vote for every fifty shares. 
The extent of territory was the same as that vaguely 
granted to Crozat. At least a portion of Texas was nom- 
inally included, but the Spaniards, as St. Denis had 
found, Avere in actual possession, and the farthest point 
west maintained by the French was the little post at 
Natchitoches established in 1717. 

In addition to the vast grants and powers already 
given to the Company, the government finally allowed 
it the same monopoly of trade with Senegal and the 



JOHN LAW AND THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE 59 

East, and the Company was then called La Compagnie 
des Incles, though still popularly known as the Missis- 
sippi Company. An extensive system of advertising was 
immediately put in operation. France was flooded with 
descriptions of the natural wealth, inexhaustible mines, 
healthful air, and docile natives of Louisiana. The Mis- 
sissippi was pictured as a veritable Pactolus ; Louisiana 
was synonymous with El Dorado ; and Law's stock be- 
gan to sell. In some mysterious way this extraordinary 
man seems to have hypnotized the whole nation, from the 
Kegent to his own coachman. Not satisfied with what 
w^as already done, he gained the ear of the Regent for a 
far more dangerous scheme. His especial fancy was that 
a large amount of the circulating medium of exchange 
would infallibly produce prosperity. Paper money 
stamped by the government would serve as well as coin 
and might be issued in any amount. The Kegent was 
just the man to be caught by this magic method of lay- 
ing the ghosts of old debts. The operations of Law's 
bank were extended. It was now called the Hoyal Bank, 
and assumed many of the prerogatives of the national 
government. Through it an incredible number of bank 
notes were issued, amounting finally to 3,000,000,000 
livres. With these notes the Company's stock could be 
bought, and the government paid them out to its cred- 
itors, who were practically forced to put them in the 
stock of the Company. Thus in a dizzy circle went the 
fatal merry-go-round, gayly whirling to Law's endless tune 
of prosperity unceasingly ground out by myriad presses 
spouting a perennial stream of prospectus and pamphlet. 
The sole security for this stupendous operation lay in the 
profits which the Company was to make from its settle- 
ments on the Mississippi. The mistaken conception of 
this paradise, encouraged by unscrupulous advertising, 
caused the most incredible delusions as to the real nature 
of the land or its real source of wealth. In the madness 
of speculation, men lost all reason and facts were forgot- 



60 LOUISIANA 

ten. The stock was taken so rapidly that the capital was 
arbitrarily increased to meet the demand. The shares 
doubled, tripled in market value, and finally rose from 
500 to 10,000 livres and even higher. At this j)oint, 
some of the first purchasers began to sell, and a tempo- 
rary depression was felt. It was met by the Company 
purchasing its own stock. The government, being heavily 
in the scheme, came to the rescue of the Company, and 
was ever ready with any legislation which Law fancied 
might help along the gigantic fraud. 

Colonists were needed. The noble families who now 
owned large estates in the wilderness along the Missis- 
sippi had pledged themselves to send settlers to their 
concessions. Emigration must be started at any cost. So 
the government went boldly to the task of ransacking 
the jails and hospitals. Disorderly soldiers, black sheep 
of distinguished families, paupers, prostitutes, political 
suspects, friendless strangers, unsophisticated peasants 
straying into Paris, all were kidnapped, herded, and 
shipped under guard to fill up the emptiness of Louisi- 
ana. To those who would emigrate voluntarily the Com- 
pany offered land, free provisions, free transportation to 
the colony and from the colony to the situation of their 
grants, wealth, and eternal prosperity without labor to 
them and their heirs forever; for the soil of Louisiana 
was said to bear two crops a year without cultivation, and 
the amiable savages were said to so adore the white men 
that they would not allow these superior beings to labor, 
and would themselves, voluntarily and for mere love, 
assume all the burden of that sordid necessity. Endless 
variations were played upon the theme of gold and silver 
mines, pearl fisheries, a balmy climate that abolished dis- 
ease and old age, and a soil that had but to be tickled to 
give up, almost as one wished, either the smiling harvest 
or the laughing gold. 

Such a state of affairs had never before been known. 
The street Quincampoix, where the stock jobbing centred, 



JOHN LAW AND THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE 61 

was given up altogether to packed offices let out at ex- 
orbitant rates. From morning to night the narrow way 
was packed to suffocation. Huge fortunes were made in 
the first impetus of speculation. Distinctions of class, 
birth, and profession seemed about to be annulled by the 
wide-flung favors of fortune. Law's coachman became a 
capitalist, and princes of the royal blood waited among 
the expectant herd in the magician's antechamber. To 
produce the human food required by the hungry octopus, 
the agents of the police scoured the kennels and alleys 
of Paris and the deserted by-ways of the provinces, and 
many a shipload of wretchedness was sent to the wilder- 
ness as a sacrifice to the new god. Paris had become in- 
fected with the temper of the Kegent. This gifted, worth- 
less man, to whom, as his mother said, the fairies had 
given all the talents save that of making use of them, 
had not only touched, with his contagious vices and love 
of pleasure, his debauched court, but had given the 
people also a brilliant example to imitate. Pleasure de- 
mands wealth ; and here was Law's scheme offering at 
once wealth, pleasure, excitement, power, and estates 
upon the Mississippi even to the petty bourgeois who had 
hitherto hardly dared to dream beyond his four walls of 
commonplace. 

And now the full tide of the boom began to reach 
Louisiana. The emigrants, hurried out to fill seignorial 
grants, began to arrive in swarms and were dumped help- 
lessly upon Dauphin Island. The first three shiploads 
arrived in 1718. Bienville was given the command once 
more to meet the new responsibilities. In spite of the 
fact that many convicts and undesirable women came 
in this first lot, the colony responded to the European 
enthusiasm, and for a short time an increased activity 
was displayed. Bienville, eager to take advantage of the 
turn of sentiment to further his long cherished plans, 
hastened to the Mississippi, sounded the mouth, and soon 
had fifty men at work, during the month of February, 



62 LOUISIANA 

1718/ clearing the site which he had chosen for his 
future metropolis, the present New Orleans. In June, 
three hundred colonists for the Mississippi arrived. One 
hundred and fifty-one of these were sent to the Natchez, 
eighty-two to the Yazoos, and sixty-eight to New Orleans. 
We have in this year the first census of New Orleans, 
with the names of the more important inhabitants. 

Goy and his people 9 

Pigeon 1 

Rougd and his people 6 

Duhamel and his people .... 3 

Bugnot and his people 9 

Dufour and his family 6 

Marlot de Yernelle and his valet . . 2 

Le Gras and his people 4 

Le Page and his people 10 

Couturier and his people .... 4 

P-obert, his son and daughter ... 3 

The 3 Orillant brothers and 3 men . 6 
A mason, a hairdresser, a chirurgeon, 

and their assistants .... 5 

Total 68 

From this time, ship after ship came in loaded with 
settlers. In August, 1718, there had arrived eight hun- 
dred in three ships ; and among them was Le Page du 
Pratz, that charming first historian of Louisiana. These 
vessels disgorged upon Dauphin Island a disorganized 
mass of humanity that heaped labor and responsibility 
upon Bienville and drove him well-nigh to his wits' end. 
Many of the new colonists were from the refuse of French 
prisons, hospitals, and houses of correction, many were 
mere adventurers, many had been deluded by false pro- 
mises, and all were sick from the hard voyage and clam- 

1 P^nicant states that the town was begun in 1717. The later date 
is preferable, however. 



JOHN LAW AND THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE Q3 

oring for the supplies, lodgings, and transportation to the 
lands which had been promised them. Upon Bienville 
fell the task of fulfilling the pledges which the Company 
itself could not make good. Crowded, unsheltered and 
unfed, upon that barren sand heap, the wretched emi- 
grants sickened, grew discontented, starved, and died ; 
yet there they had to wait until Bienville with his few 
boats and small force of efficient men could parcel them 
out about the country. He sent one hundred to the 
Illinois, and dispatched as many as he could to the 
Mississippi, to Bay St. Louis, Biloxi, and Mobile ; yet, 
faster than he could dispose of this mass of confusion, 
the infatuated enthusiasm in France continued to unload 
upon him and Louisiana. 

In the midst of the excitement, in April, 1719, news 
was brought that war had broken out between France 
and Spain, and Bienville seized the opportunity to take 
Pensacola and burn the fort ; but peace, declared in the 
following February, restored the place to the Spanish, 
and left the two colonies in the same relative position 
towards each other. 

The colony now had a more efficient local government 
and the Company had taken the most energetic measures 
to people its desert places, but these efforts had been 
fatally misdirected and had therefore produced no profit- 
able results either to the colony or to the stockholders of 
the Company. No mines had been found, and the set- 
tlers sent out had, in most cases, been either incapable of 
tilling the soil or unwilling to undertake any honorable 
labor. Consequently Louisiana was a drain instead of 
a source of profit. The value of the Company's stock 
began to fall, and a movement among its holders to real- 
ize produced the first symptoms of panic. The govern- 
ment, too deeply interested to draw back, attempted to 
assist the Company by even such extraordinary legisla- 
tion as the demonetization of gold and silver in order to 
compel the bank notes to float ; but the fictitious security 



64 LOUISIANA 

was gone, and panic spread as rapidly and madly as had 
the first fever of speculation. The government was 
desperate, for the failure of the Company would he a 
national calamity. Every effort, save the right one, was 
made to reestablish its security. If the Mississippi ter- 
ritory could be made to pay, all might yet be well. 
Unhappily no remedy was thought of but the sending out 
of more worthless colonists. Again there was a ransack- 
ing of the holes and kennels of Paris. If the first ship- 
ments had been bad, the later were worse. Then, when 
the worthless rabble refused to till the vast " estates " 
of their titled landlords on the Mississippi, the Company 
sent African slaves by the hundred. Law did indeed 
send out some industrious Alsatian families destined for 
his own huge grant on the Arkansas, but these also, 
being left among the crowd on Dauphin Island, paid the 
usual death tribute to the scheme, and only a few sur- 
vived to settle finally on the Mississippi just above New 
Orleans. 

At last the Company awoke to a realization of the 
horrors being enacted on Dauphin Island, and fancied 
that a change of capital might remedy matters. Bienville 
put in a plea for the Mississippi and the site he had 
selected between Lake Pontchartrain and the river, 
but Hubert the intendant, backed by the European 
directors, decided in favor of the old fort on Biloxi Bay. 
In 1719, therefore, the seat of government, or, rather, 
the centre of confusion, was removed from Mobile to this 
place. 

Du Pratz describes the wretchedness of the situation 
and the folly of its selection. Ships, he says, could not 
come within three or four leagues of the shore, and goods 
could be gotten to land only by three changes from 
smaller to yet smaller boats, and even then carts had to 
be sent out a hundred paces into the shallow water 
to meet the last relay. Here, too, famine and disease 
slaughtered their hundreds, white and black. Dumont says 



JOHN LAW AND THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE 65 

that the bodies often lay in unburied heaps on the sand, 
where the wretches had fallen and died. 

Meanwhile financial panic in France was spreading 
ruin of another sort. In its efforts to protect Law^s bank 
and India Company, the government had not only de- 
monetized specie but had declared that no person should 
hold more than five hundred livres in either gold or 
silver coin under pain of confiscation. Specie promptly 
disappeared from circulation, was sent out of the country, 
hidden, or melted down into plate. The informer drove 
a thriving trade. So completely, however, did specie 
disappear and so little was gained by this act of confis- 
cation, that the government now went to the extreme 
length of arbitrarily scaling down the value of the out- 
standing bank notes by one half. This was more than 
the defrauded people could endure. There was a run on 
the bank. Men, eager to save anything from the general 
wreck, were crushed to death in the crowd that surged 
against the doors of the bank. A riot broke out in the 
city. Law was attacked, his carriage broken to pieces, 
and his own life saved only by the protection of the 
K-egent. Finally the E-egent was compelled to send Law 
penniless out of the country, for the wretched financier 
had received the whole blame of the failure for which 
he was but partly responsible, and his continued presence 
in France under the favor and protection of the E-egent 
might have precipitated a revolution. 

In the midst of the suffering that followed the col- 
lapse of Law's bubble, the capital of Louisiana on Biloxi 
Bay and the old fort were destroyed by fire. The ques- 
tion of removing the seat of government again came up, 
and Bienville again made a plea for his site on the Mis- 
sissippi. Hubert and a majority of the council were still 
opposed to him, however, and, backed again by the Euro- 
pean directors, chose in 1721 the site now occupied by 
the present town of Biloxi. 

Bienville knew that this choice would not be perma- 



66 LOUISIANA 

nent. Accordingly he set about demonstrating his theory 
that a town situated on the Mississippi would grow. He 
removed one objection to his site by sending a fully 
loaded ship through the passes and up the river to New 
Orleans. He also had the Sieur Pauger, who was assist- 
ant to the chief engineer, La Tour, lay out the streets 
of the future city of New Orleans, which he had deter- 
mined to build up in spite of all short-sighted opposition. 
Though it was becoming constantly more evident that 
the Mississippi valley was to be the centre and support 
of the French establishments, this neglected field showed 
but little progress towards civilization since the first 
measures taken by Iberville. Pauger found New Orleans 
itself but a small collection of thatched huts, and he 
had been forced to cut his way through tangled forest to 
run his lines for streets and boundaries. Yet, on the 
banks of Bayou St. Jean, settlers like Le Page du Pratz 
had built their homes and were living an idyllic life 
of tranquillity. About twenty miles below the town, the 
remnant of the band of German farmers sent out by Law 
for the Arkansas was located in a thriving line of small 
farms on the fertile lands of what is now St. Charles 
Parish. Fort de Boulaix, still lower down the river, and 
the settlement at Pointe Coupee were enjoying a modest 
degree of prosperity. La Harpe at the Natchitoches had 
been attempting to extend the French boundary farther 
westward and to establish trade with the Spaniards on 
Trinity Piver. St. Denis, after testing the temper of 
their government in his attempts to establish trade wath 
Mexico, abandoned the plan as hopeless. The French 
still claimed Texas on the strength of La Salle's disas- 
trous attempt at settlement on Matagorda Bay, and the 
European directors were constantly insisting that the coast 
of Texas should again be occupied. In 1720, six men 
w^ere landed about one hundred and thirty leagues west 
of the Mississippi, and left to their fate. In 1721, La 
Harpe took possession of Matagorda (or St. Bernard) 



JOHN LAW AND THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE 67 

Bay, but the hostility of the Indians compelled him to 
abandon the place. In fact, the whole of this territory 
was either in the possession or under the influence of the 
Spaniards. The French therefore abandoned it after this 
attempt of La Harpe, and never afterward established 
a post beyond the western limits of the present State of 
Louisiana. In view of the disputes as to the real western 
boundary of the province known as Louisiana which arose 
at the cession of the territory to the United States in 
1803, it is well to bear the present facts in mind, and it 
is not out of place to record here the comment of Barbe- 
Marbois at the time of transfer. " The act of possession," 
he writes,-^ " in the name of France included the territory 
between the mouth of the Mobile and St. Bernard (Mat- 
agorda) Bay. It was but feebly contested by the Spanish, 
and the relations of friendship and mutual interest which 
were established at the beginning of the eighteenth cen- 
tury between the two kingdoms caused a cessation of the 
protests of the court of Madrid. However, there was 
absolutely no settlement of boundaries ; and it seems as 
if, on the one hand, the Spanish feared that if the line 
were exactly defined they might have to make conces- 
sions, and that, on the other hand, the French had no 
wish to confine their possible growth within limits too 
exact." 

The failure, therefore, to plant a successful colony on 
the Gulf coast, and the impossibility of spreading west- 
ward into the region of the silver mines, forced the 
French to the more profitable coarse of concentrating 
their efforts upon the settlement of the Mississippi val- 
ley. Bienville, laboring with this aim in view, had had 
Pauger busily at work sounding and examining the 
mouths of the river. This engineer found that the shal- 
low water at the entrance was caused by the bar of sand 
and mud disgorged by the stream, and that the current 
could be made to deepen its own channel if the banks 
1 Histoire de la Louisiane, p. 114. 



6S LOUISIANA 

were narrowed by a system of jetties which forced the 
water to flow swiftly in a narrower stream out to sea. 
This plan was not used until Captain Eads, a hundred 
and fifty years later, put the same system into operation, 
but it had been demonstrated that JSTew Orleans could be 
made a port for the largest sea-going vessels. 

In July, 1721, Duvergier, the new president of the 
Superior Council, was sent out with powers Mdiich prac- 
tically put him over Bienville, although the latter was 
not actually displaced. The coming of this official, how- 
ever, was merely the result of the anxiety and distress 
of the Company, and of the blame that had been cast 
upon Bienville for the failures which had taken place in 
the colony. This deprivation of his authority lasted 
but a short while. The vindication of his actions and 
his superior abilities caused him to be restored to power 
in May, 1722, and with his instructions came the great- 
est reward of his labors, the most complete indorsement 
of his policy, namely, the order to remove the seat of 
government to ISTew Orleans. 

In June, 1722, the headquarters of the colonial gov- 
ernment had been established at New Orleans, and the 
whole province of Louisiana was redivided into nine dis- 
tricts, — Mobile, Biloxi, Alibamous, Natchez, Yazoo, 
Natchitoches, Arkansas, Illinois, and New Orleans, the 
capital. It was also necessary to reestablish ecclesiastical 
divisions to avoid disputes among rival orders of mis- 
sionaries. The first division, comprising the valley of 
the Mississippi from the Gulf to the Ohio and including 
the territory west of the river, was allotted to the Capu- 
chins, whose superior was to reside in New Orleans. 
The second division, including the territory north of the 
Ohio, was given to the Jesuits, whose headquarters were 
among the Illinois. The third division, lying south of 
the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, was put at first 
under the care of the Carmelites, whose superior was to 
reside at Mobile. The Church of Louisiana was still 



SEAT OF GOVERNMENT AT NEW ORLEANS 69 

under the general supervision of that of Canada, and 
each of the three heads of orders was a grand vicar of 
the Bishop of Quebec. As the Carmelites, however, were 
unable to occupy the territory assigned to them, their 
field of work was soon given to the Capuchins, and the 
Jesuits were allowed to establish missions as far south 
as the Natchez, both east and west of the Mississippi. 

The city of New Orleans had now been regularly laid 
out in rectangular form. In the centre of the town and 
on the river bank where Jackson Square now stands, was 
the Place d'Armes, an open square flanked on the upper 
side by the intendance and council house, and on the 
lower side by the storehouses and the market. The side 
nearest the river was left free, but at the back of the 
square, on the site of the present cathedral and court 
buildings, were erected a little parish church and, just 
above it, a house for the Capuchins, the Corps de Garde, 
and the prisons. The powder magazine was on the upper 
edge of the town, near the site of the present custom 
house. Bienville's private hotel was just below this, 
within the square now bounded by Bienville, Royal, St. 
Louis, and Chartres streets. The whole town itself lay 
well within the rectangle bounded to-day by the river and 
the streets Canal, Rampart, and Esplanade. A low dike, 
shaded by trees, was thrown up along the river front. A 
deep drainage ditch was dug behind the city, and near 
it the first little cemetery was laid out. A sawmill, a 
rice-mill, and a brickyard on the lower edge of the settle- 
ment soon gave evidence of incipient industry ; but the 
gloom, the rank vegetation, and the swarming, crawling 
life of the vast swamp yet held sway over the place. The 
season of high water converted the squares into little 
ditch-girt islands or islets as they are still locally called 
by the French-speaking inhabitants. Yet the town was 
laid out and even named in full consciousness of future 
dignity. The Regent, Duke of Orleans, was sponsor, and 
the streets bore the names of princes of the royal blood, 



70 LOUISIANA 

names that still recall an echo of the grandeur of Louis 
XIV — Conde, Conti, Du Maine, Toulouse, Chartres, 
and Bourbon. 

The fertile land immediately about the city was soon 
modestly thriving. The little Bayou Tchoupic, or St. 
Jean, to give it its newer Christian name, was the ave- 
nue of trade by small vessels between the Mississippi 
and the Gulf settlements. Plantations were laid out on 
the western bank of the river and below the city, and 
up the river the thriving truckfarms of Law's Germans 
offered the most stimulating spectacle and the best object 
lesson in the colony. 

Nevertheless, as time went on and more settlers came 
into the country, there was no increase of prosperity. 
On the contrary, the settlement on the Mississippi went 
through the same cycle of famine and disease as had 
hampered the colonies on the Gulf coast and the earlier 
establishments of Canada. The comparative failure of 
these French colonies seems to have been partly the 
result of the blunders of the European directors, partly 
due to the very nature of French civilization at that time. 
The form of government which the strong will of Louis 
XIV had fixed and stereotyped upon the national char- 
acter was too exactly, too rigidly logical to admit of the 
elasticity demanded by an application to colonial needs ; 
and yet, so firmly was this form impressed upon the 
nation, that the colonists of Louisiana perpetuated in 
their settlements the same prying, all-meddling, all-direct- 
ing governmental supervision and direction which had 
begun effectually to subdue individual action in France, 
and which, in a growing colony, could not but prove 
absolutely fatal to development. In spite of opposite 
intentions, European custom had grafted an almost feudal 
system of land tenure upon Louisiana. Most of the land 
was held in large tracts by aristocrats, many of whom 
remained in France. The few worthy peasants sent out 
by the Company, settling upon these lands, fell at once 



SEAT OF GOVERNMENT AT NEW ORLEANS 71 

into the same relation to their landlords as had prevailed 
in France ; but even this slow process of growth was 
checked by the persistent unloading of worthless and 
useless men and women upon the young province and the 
consequent necessity of relying almost entirely upon 
the labor of negro slaves. The institution of slavery and 
the possibility it offered of opening large tracts of land to 
cultivation seemed to many of the more ambitious col- 
onists to offer a solution to the whole problem. Yet the 
Jesuit Charlevoix, who visited the colony in 1722, pre- 
dicted at that early day the evil effects which such an 
institution must inevitably have even upon the class most 
enriched by it, and he foretold the danger which was to 
be feared from the growth of such a barbarous and infe- 
rior race at the very core of the higher civilization. 
Moreover, the Company, imitating by instinct the na- 
tional government, established a system in Louisiana 
which attempted to supervise and direct all forms of 
activity and, most unfortunately, to regulate economic 
difficulties by purely experimental and arbitrary legisla- 
tion. Not content with restricting trade, discouraging 
manufactures, and chilling all desire for profitable enter- 
prise, the Company repeated a mistake which had already 
been unsuccessfully inflicted upon Canada. Paper and 
card money was issued in payment of the Company's 
purchases and debts, and attempt was made to control 
its circulation by edict. The only silver coin circulating 
freely in the colony was Spanish, and this also the Com- 
pany attempted to fix at an arbitrary valuation. Depres- 
sion and discouragement were the immediate results. An 
English resident of New Orleans at that time has left a 
manuscript sketch ^ of the condition of the colony, in 
which he asserts that the voluntary immigration of good 
and able settlers was almost totally checked, and that 
many of those already in the colony left for the Caroli- 
nas. The Company had adopted, as a means of scaling 

1 Copy in possession of the Louisiana Historical Society. 



72 LOUISIANA 

its debt to individuals in the colony, the expedient of 
paying its creditors in notes to be redeemed with the 
card money in so short a time that those holders who 
lived at a distance were not able to collect on the speci- 
fied date and so lost their notes altogether. Copper 
money was sent from France; and the Company did 
its utmost to force this medium into circulation. The 
manuscript already referred to states that a pair of shoes 
then cost thirty livres and a pint of brandy fifty livres, 
and that the copper coin was so bulky and so much of 
it was required for the most trivial purchases that it be- 
came almost as burdensome as the iron money of Sparta. 
A great deal of this money returned to France by the 
vessels that brought it ; and when the ships had gone 
and there was nothing to buy, the soldiers " gambled for 
hats full of it and then threw it into the river, because 
they could not do anything with it." 

In the contemporary records, one meets with constant 
complaints, apparently contradictory, of the severity and 
stultifying control of the government and of the laxity of 
morals among the people. But one may easily appreciate 
how authority might be insufficient to restrain the degen- 
eracy or turn to use the worthlessness of such settlers as 
the Company had sent out, and yet be too severe, too 
restricting for the better classes. Then, too, if one is to 
believe the few statistics at hand, the population, in spite 
of the vast influx during the time of the boom, remained 
at about the same number. But perhaps in this there is 
indication of a process at work for the ultimate good of 
the land. For little by little the transplantings of vice 
were uprooted or crushed out in America as they would 
have been in France by the natural running-out of their 
course, by the same inherent process of degeneracy that 
had produced them. What remained was somehow trans- 
formed in the new world into something different. The 
good stock, rooted to the soil and growing firmly, absorbed 
and transformed the baser graft. Many of the officials 



SEAT OF GOVERNMENT AT NEW ORLEANS 73 

had their wives and families with them and kept their 
blood clear from inferior mixture ; the Germans on the 
Mississippi had German homes ; and finally France saw 
the impossibility of her attempt to find in the degraded 
and sterile refuse of hospital and prison the maternity of 
its colony. Thus, in spite of the most incredible blunders, 
the most utter blindness to actual conditions, in spite of 
misgovernment, in spite of the bickerings of officials and 
priests and the petty graspings and jealousies of unpaid 
governors and intendants, two inexorable forces worked 
inflexibly for the permanent settlement of the great val- 
ley, — one the consciousness of the growing shadow of the 
greatness of England and the steady creeping line of her 
western colonies, the other the inherent need of any old 
nation to colonize. 

One of the most unfortunate results of the conflicting 
theories of inexperienced governors and the presence of 
many unprincipled men in the settlements was the un- 
doing of the friendly relations with the natives, which 
had been so carefully sought by Iberville and so admir- 
ably maintained by Bienville until his own power, in- 
fluence, and more experienced judgment had been 
overridden. The Chickasaws had been entirely lost to 
the French, and these together with the English emis- 
saries had long been laboring to detach the powerful 
Natchez tribes. Finally, in 1723, a band of Natchez 
waylaid and murdered some French travelers. Bienville 
summoned the chiefs to council and harangued them in 
the style which he felt would most appeal to them. It 
appeared that only three villages of the tribe had been 
concerned in the murders. Bienville therefore marched 
against these in October with a small force of seven hun- 
dred Indians and white men. The result was negative. 
The villages were found deserted ; a few squaws were cap- 
tured ; a few skirmishes occurred in which the Indian allies 
won what little glory was earned ; and the army returned 
without having dared to hold the whole tribe responsible. 



k 



74 LOUISIANA 

The manuscript of the English resident already quoted 
states that this '' war '^ was rather laughed at by the 
colonists, who called it '' La Guerre aux Poules," or '^ the 
Chicken War," for the only plunder brought back was a 
quantity of chickens captured by the soldiers. 

In the year 1724 an interesting piece of legislation 
was instituted. As has been seen, the holders of large 
estates had been unable to cultivate them with the labor 
of the worthless emigrants sent from France by the Com- 
pany of the Indies. The size of the plantations and the 
nature of the crops to be raised, rice, indigo, tobacco, 
and myrtle-wax, demanded a large number of field-hands. 
The first importation of African slaves seemed to offer 
an immediate solution of the difficulty. The Company 
therefore availed itself of its privilege to import negroes 
in large numbers, and the planters eagerly bought them, 
pledging their future crops in payment. These negroes 
were savages, sometimes of the lowest and most degraded 
type, sometimes of tribes whose cruelty and fierceness 
were well known. Moreover, they throve and increased 
so rapidly in the favorable climate of Louisiana that 
something of the danger predicted by Father Charlevoix 
seemed immediately threatening. This danger may be 
appreciated when the absolute savagery of the slaves is 
considered, and when one finds the population at this 
time estimated by La Harpe as 1700 whites to 3300 
blacks, in a wilderness far removed from all other civil- 
ization and in the midst of great and warlike Indian 
tribes whose hostility might be expected at any time. 
The figures given by La Harpe, taken as a total, are 
apparently incorrect, but they may safely be considered 
as proportionally showing the alarming growth of the 
black population. Some special legislation providing for 
the control of this savage people was therefore impera- 
tive, and had this legislation been harsh and based solely 
upon the superior power and force of the white minor- 
ity and designed merely to hold the blacks in subjection, 



SEAT OF GOVERNMENT AT NEW ORLEANS 75 

such a course, under the prevailing conditions, might at 
least be understood ; but the usual benevolence of the 
French towards all the savage nations with which they 
came in contact wrought a system of laws as full of 
justice and even kindness toward the slaves as could be 
made consistent with such an institution as slavery and 
with the absolute necessity of controlling such a dangerous 
element and maintaining the natural superiority of the 
white race. The Code Noir, adopted by the officials of 
Louisiana from the acts drawn up by the lawyers of Louis 
XIV for the government of the slaves of St. Domingo, 
is more lenient, more considerate of the merely human 
rights of the subject and defenseless alien, than would have 
been the laws of any Teutonic nation under similar con- 
ditions. The harshest, the most severe penalties were 
provided and inflicted in case of any act on the part of 
slaves which tended to endanger the absolute supremacy 
of the white race ; but within these limits the black slave 
was as fully protected from the tyranny, neglect, oppres- 
sion, or cruelty of his master as was the involuntarily 
bound servant or even the hired domestic of early Massa- 
chusetts. So general has been the misconception of the 
intent of the Black Code, and so important is it to any 
understanding of the slavery question, lying as it does at 
the base of all the legislation of the Spaniards and Amer- 
icans in this province, that its main provisions may well 
be outlined here. 

Curiously enough, the first article somewhat irrele- 
vantly ordered the expulsion of Jews from the colony. 
Articles 2, 3, 4, and 5 prescribed religious instruction in 
the Roman Catholic faith, ordered that Sundays and all 
holidays be given to the slaves under pain of confisca- 
tion, and made the masters responsible for their moral 
instruction. The Code also interposed whatever barriers 
might be raised by legislation against the mingling of 
the two races. All marriages of whites with blacks, 
whether slave or free, and concubinage with slaves, were 



I 



76 LOUISIANA 

forbidden under penalty of heavy fines, and, in the 
breach of the latter clause, both the woman and her 
child, if there should be one, were to be taken from the 
master. Masters were absolutely forbidden to force mar- 
riages between slaves. The children of slaves were to 
belong to the master of the woman. If the father should 
be a slave and the mother a free woman of color, the 
children were to follow the condition of the mother and 
be free. In the reverse case, the children would also fol- 
low the condition of the mother and be the slaves of her 
owner. All slaves who had become converted to Chris- 
tianity were to be buried in consecrated ground. Slaves 
were forbidden to carry weapons, under penalty of 
whipping, save when allowed to go hunting with the 
written permit of their master. Slaves of different mas- 
ters were forbidden to assemble in crowds, under penalty 
of whipping, and masters who permitted such assem- 
blages were made subject to a fine which doubled at each 
repetition of the offense. So important to the safety of 
the colony was this provision considered, that the heavi- 
est penalties were imposed for the frequent breach of 
this law. Branding with the Jieur de lis and, " if there 
should be aggravating circumstances, capital punishment 
might be inflicted at the discretion of the judges.'' 
Slaves were prohibited from selling any commodity with- 
out the written permission of the owner, and any person 
purchasing in violation of this law would be subject to a 
fine of 1500 livres. Four articles of the Code are given 
to detailed provision for the feeding and clothing of 
slaves, and slaves not properly fed or clothed were 
ordered to report to the Attorney-General of the Supe- 
rior Council, or to the officers of their territory, who 
should conduct a prosecution free of cost to the com- 
plainant. The Code expressly ordered that slaves who 
should become disabled by age or disease, or for any 
cause, must be cared for and supported by their masters. 
*' In case they should have been abandoned by said 



SEAT OF GOVERNMENT AT NEW ORLEANS 11 

masters, said slaves shall be adjudged to the nearest 
hospital, to which said masters shall be obliged to pay 
8 cents a day for the food and maintenance of each one 
of these slaves ; and for the payment of this sum said 
hospital shall have a lien on the plantation of said 
master." Slaves might not acquire any property, real or 
personal, and were to be held incapable of all public 
functions; nor was their testimony to be admitted either 
in civil or criminal cases, except when there were no 
white witnesses, and under no circumstances might they 
serve as witnesses either for or against their own masters. 
They could not be party to either civil or criminal cases, 
but their masters were compelled to appear for them, and 
were to be held legally responsible for any act done by 
their slaves under their orders. Slaves brought up for 
trial might appeal to the Superior Council, and were to 
have the same rights as free persons, with the following 
exceptions : a slave who had struck his master or mis- 
tress, or their children, so as to make a bruise or draw 
blood, was to suffer capital punishment, and all acts of 
violence on the part of slaves against free persons were 
to be punished with great severity and even with death 
if the judges should so decide. Theft of horses, cows, 
or especially valuable property by slaves might, in some 
cases, be punished by death,-*^ and the masters of the 
thieves were compelled to make good the loss and to 
surrender the slaves for punishment. A runaway slave 
who should continue so for one month should have his 
ears cut off and be branded on the shoulder with the 
fieur de lis; at the second offense, if he remained away 
a month, he should be hamstrung and branded on the 

1 Lest this law should appear unduly harsh, it is well to remem- 
ber the scarcity and great value of cattle and stock at this time. 
The laws applying to freeborn whites under this head were equally 
severe. No man was permitted to kill his own female stock even for 
food without permission from the authorities; and the wanton killing 
or maiming of a horned animal by any one not its owner was punish- 
able bv death. 



78 LOUISIANA 

other shoulder ; and at the third offense he should he 
put to death. Judges of the inferior courts might inflict 
branding and whipping without appeal to the Superior 
Council, but in cases involving hamstringing or death 
the appeal to the higher court was granted. Masters 
were forbidden on their own authority to apply the 
rack to their slaves or to mutilate them in any way 
under penalty of confiscation. They might, however, 
whip refractory negroes with rods or ropes. Officers of 
justice were forbidden to receive any fees in the prosecu- 
tion of criminal cases against slaves. Slaves who were 
husband and wife might not be seized or sold separately 
when belonging to the same master, nor might children 
under fourteen years of age be taken from their parents, 
all such sales and seizures being null and void. In case 
of violation of these articles, the seller would be com- 
pelled to surrender the slave whom he had retained to 
the purchaser of the other. Masters over twenty-five 
years of age might manumit slaves, either by testament- 
ary act, or by disposition while alive. " But," says the 
Code, " as there ma}'" be mercenary masters disposed to 
set a price on the liberation of their slaves, and whereas 
slaves, with a view to acquire the means necessary to 
the purchase of their freedom, may be tempted to com- 
mit theft or deeds of plunder, no person, whatever may 
be his rank or condition, shall be permitted to set free 
his slaves without obtaining from the Superior Council a 
decree of permission to that effect, which permission 
shall be granted without costs, when the motives for the 
setting free of said slaves, as specified in the petition of 
the master, shall appear legitimate to the tribunal." 
Slaves so freed should have all the privileges of free 
whites save that of receiving donations either by testa- 
mentary disposition or by acts inter vivos from whites. 
In the words of the closing article of the Code, " we 
grant to manumitted slaves the same rights, privileges, 
and immunities which are enjoyed by freeborn persons. 



SEAT OF GOVERNMENT AT NEW ORLEANS 79 

It is our pleasure that their merit in having acquired 
their freedom shall produce in their favor, not only with 
regard to their persons but also with regard to their 
property, the same eJGfects which our other subjects de- 
rive from the happy circumstance of having been born 
free." The Code was signed during March, 1724, in the 
name of the king, by Bienville, De la Chaise, Fazende, 
Brusle, and Perrier. 

The adoption of this Code was the last important act 
of Bienville under the administration of the Company of 
the Indies. The complete failure of the colony to pay 
the investors of the Company's stock and the unceasing 
complaints and bickerings of the colonial officials had 
been persistently charged against Bienville. A stronger 
and more united opposition now brought about a long 
needed investigation of the public accounts. These were 
found to be in such confusion that no one could possibly 
understand them. The responsibility for the confusion 
was laid upon the governor, and he was summoned early 
in the year 1724 to appear in Europe and give an expla- 
nation. Boisbriant was ordered down from the Illinois 
to act in his stead until a new governor could be chosen 
in Europe, and the engineer La Tour performed the 
duties of the office while Boisbriant was on his way. 
Bienville was thus at once removed from all authority, 
and every kinsman and partisan of his was likewise dis- 
missed from office. For the first time since the colony 
had been founded, not a single member of the Le Moyne 
family had any share in the direction of the affairs of 
the province which they had practically created. Still, it 
was several months before Bienville was relieved of his 
humiliating position by the arrival of the Sieur Perrier, 
the new governor. De la Chaise was made Intendant and 
president of the Superior Council. i_^ 

It is not known what effect was produced by the 
memorial which Bienville so carefully prepared for the 
European directors, or what impression was made by 



80 LO UI8IANA 

the strong defense which La Harpe had written and 
sent at the same time, if indeed it were presented at all. 
We know only that the single result was the sharp cen- 
sure of the chief instigators of the cahal against him ; yet 
he remained in France, and his policy was reversed by 
the new colonial administration, 

Perrier assumed authority in the year 1725. The first 
years of his government passed peacefully. The one 
event of great importance to the colony was the arrival 
of the Ursuline nuns, supplying, as it did, perhaps the 
greatest need of the growing establishment. In Septem- 
ber, 1726, the Company of the Indies made a contract 
with these Sisters whereby they were to furnish six nuns 
to serve in the hospital, to teach the girls, both white 
and colored, and to serve as the means of transporting 
girls of good character and useful training to supply the 
yet unfulfilled need of suitable wives for the bachelor 
officers and for the farmers and artisans of the better 
sort. The degraded women first sent out had been often 
as unwilling as they had been unfit for marriage and 
domesticity, and even the policy of discharging the rank 
and file of the soldiery and tempting them to marriage 
with these women by offers of land and exemption from 
taxation had failed to clear the problem. The woods were 
full of the younger and more adventurous men, unset- 
tled, dangerous, and demoralizing in their influence ; and 
we find the Jesuits "^ encouraging and even urging, as 
a substitute of a lesser for a greater evil, the legalized 
marriage of such men with Indian women. Thus the col- 
ony was lacking in women worthy to be the wives of such 
settlers as had now begun to drift into the province, or 
to become the mothers of the race that would make the 
colony all that its creators designed it to be. 

In February, 1727, the Ursulines sailed from France. 
They were Normans of Rouen, of the town that had 
given La Salle to Louisiana, and of the race that had 
1 See the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses des Jesuites. 



SEAT OF GOVERNMENT AT NEW ORLEANS 81 

laid the foundations of its homes. One of the Sisters 
bore the name of Cavelier, and one other, at least, was 
proudly conscious of the poetic justice of the destiny 
that the women of Normandy should consecrate the la- 
bor to which her men had dedicated their lives. In all 
the early records, no name has more charm, more inti- 
mate and lovable associations, than that of one of these 
Sisters, Madeleine Hachard, and the full record of the 
journey which her facile pen has left offers a piquant 
and fascinatingly fresh and living narrative which one 
regrets not to insert in full. 

The nuns were given a grant of eight arpents front 
on the river at the lower edge of the town, together 
with a house and eight negroes to till their land. The 
house was delayed in the building, however, and they 
were temporarily installed in the hotel which Bienville 
had built for himself almost upon the site of the present 
custom house. While waiting for their house, the Sisters 
fell diligently to work. Some thirty pupils and girl lodg- 
ers had applied at once, and a wooden building was im- 
mediately put up near their temporary quarters to serve 
as a schoohouse.^ 

While the work went on with eager zeal, Madeleine 
found time to describe the city and give some idea of 
the life of the people. The picture she gives is brighter 
than that of the official records. In the dress of the peo- 
ple, Madeleine found '' as much magnificence and refine- 
ment as in France. ... I do not, however, speak of the 
manners of the laity, as I know nothing of them and 
have no desire to know them, but I am told that their 
habits are corrupt and scandalous. There are, however, 

1 There is a tradition that they left Bienville's house and occupied 
other quarters in the neighborhood of Nun and Religious streets and 
that they were not installed in their own quarters until 1734 b}'' Bien- 
ville himself on his return. Their house still standing in Charters 
Street was used by the legislature in 1831, and is now the official resi- 
dence of the Archbishop, for in 1824 the Ursulines removed to their 
present convent below the old city. 



82 LOUISIANA 

great number of honest people, and one does not see 
any of those girls who were said to have been deported 
on compulsion. . . . The city itself is very handsome 
and regularly built. The houses are well constructed of 
wood, plastered, whitewashed, wainscoted, and open to 
the light. The roofs of the house are covered with shin- 
gles which are cut in the shape of slates, and one must 
know this to believe it, for they have all the appear- 
ance and beauty of slate. Suffice to say, they sing here 
a song in the streets to the effect that this town is as 
fine a sight as Paris." The religious services at the con- 
vent were conducted with great ceremony, not only to 
offer as sharp a contrast as possible to the former absence 
of such things, but also to draw the attention of the 
somewhat volatile population to the beauty of religion. 
Thus the Sisters gathered their motley flock. The au- 
thorities themselves assisted in the novel crusade against 
vice, and those unfortunate sinners who had not been 
quick to turn and drift with the new tide of virtue fared 
badly. Girls of bad conduct were " severely punished by 
putting them upon wooden horses and having them 
whipped by the regiment of soldiers that guards the 
town.'' A house for the detention and reformation of such 
women was built and intrusted to the Sisters. Negro 
and Indian women were given " instruction " regularly 
for two hours each day. Madeleine was horrified at the 
ignorance of matters spiritual which their investigations 
revealed among even the white girls. They were often 
married, she says, at the age of twelve or fourteen, some 
of them '^ not even knowing how many gods there are — 
and you can imagine the rest." 

In the year following the arrival of the Ursulines, the 
first of the filles a la cassette were sent out to their care. 
Unlike the girls that had hitherto been shipped to the 
colony by the Company, with no other quality than that of 
sex, the present had been carefully chosen in France for 
character and skill in housewifery, and came as voluntary 



SEAT OF GOVERNMENT AT NEW ORLEANS 83 

emigrants. Each girl was dowered with ^ chest of cloth- 
ing. They came, of course, with the understanding that 
their vocation in the province was to be wifehood and 
motherhood, but the actual choice of husbands was to be 
voluntary and only from among such suitors as were ap- 
proved by the Sisters, in whose convent the girls were to 
remain till married. 

But now the peace of the colony was suddenly broken, 
and its very existence threatened by the first very alarm- 
ing outbreak they had yet been called upon to face. 
Father Le Petit tells graphically, in the twenty-second 
collection of the '* Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses," how 
on the 2d of December, 1729, a half-famished, ragged 
refugee came in from the Natchez, and threw New Or- 
leans into consternation by announcing that the whole 
powerful tribe had risen and massacred all the French at 
Fort Rosalie and in the adjacent country. The man who 
brought the news had been in the woods when the mas- 
sacre took place, and had stealthily made his way south- 
ward, suffering frightfully from hunger and exposure. 
When he reached the Yazoo country, he had been forced 
by actual starvation to join a party of Yazoos whose tem- 
per he mistrusted, but who proved to be friendly, and 
gave him a canoe to ease the remainder of his journey 
to New Orleans. 

Soon other fugitives came in and confirmed the terrible 
tidings. The details of the massacre increased the panic 
and horror. It had taken place in October. It appeared 
that the tyranny of Chepart, the French commandant of 
Fort Rosalie, had driven the Natchez to the conclusion 
that the French were plotting their extermination. 
Chepart's final order that they should give up their vil- 
lage called White Apple roused them to determined re- 
sistance. The several villages united in council, and 
agreed upon a day and hour when all the French in that 
part of the country should be attacked simultaneously. 
Each deputation on leaving the council bore away an 



84 LOUISIANA 

equal number of sticks. Every day one of these was to be 
burned. The attack was to be made on the day when the 
last stick was consumed. On that day Indians appeared 
in every cabin of the white men, upon some pretext 
or other, this one to trade, that one to borrow a gun. 
Into the fort they swarmed, pretending to be going on 
a hunting expedition, and borrowing guns and powder. 
At the given signal each savage fell upon his selected vic- 
tim, and the massacre began. Commander Chepart was 
one of the first killed, and his head was brought to the 
Chief Sun, who sat and smoked in the government ware- 
house, while his followers busily slaughtered the sur- 
prised and defenseless whites. As the massacre went on, 
the heads were brought to the Chief Sun, and placed 
before him on the floor of the warehouse in a grim circle 
about the head of Chepart. Over two hundred whites 
were killed, and over a hundred women and children 
taken prisoners, with all the negro slaves. Only two 
white men were spared, one a tailor and the other a 
carpenter. Two soldiers of the fort, who happened to be 
in the woods when the massacre began, escaped and 
finally reached New Orleans. The capital was shaken 
with grief and panic when the full horror of the attack 
was learned. The city itself was believed to be in dan- 
ger, for it was rumored that the Natchez uprising was 
but the first act of a general Indian war, that all the 
settlements were to be attacked, and that some of the 
African slaves were in conspiracy with the native savages 
to annihilate the white race. Hasty preparations for de- 
fense were made. A moat was dug about the city, and 
guards established at the four corners. Word was sent 
to Prance for help. Two vessels remained anchored in 
the river opposite the town as a refuge for the women 
and children in case of attack. Couriers were sent out 
into the country to warn outlying settlements, and scouts 
went in canoes up the river to warn travelers that the 
Natchez were on the warpath. Perrier decided to remain 



SEAT OF GOVERNMENT AT NEW ORLEANS 85 

in New Orleans for its defense, and to send Loubois with 
what troops and Indian allies he might yet command to 
chastise the Natchez and rescue what prisoners might still 
remain alive among them. The number of French troops 
was small and inefficient, but fortunately the powerful 
tribe of Choctaws remained faithful, and sent at once a 
force of seven hundred warriors who, under the Cana- 
dian Le Sueur, surprised the triumphant Natchez while 
still feasting and carousing over their success, killed sixty 
of them, and rescued fifty-nine white women and children 
and one hundred of the captured negro slaves. It was 
February, 1730, before the white troops from New Or- 
leans arrived and laid regular siege to the White Apple 
village. It was splendidly defended. The only successes 
were won by the Indian allies. But the siege was closely 
maintained until the Natchez agreed to surrender all their 
prisoners if the French would withdraw. This was but a 
negative success ; but as there seemed to be small pros- 
pect of any other, Loubois consented to the terms, and 
received the prisoners. The whole army of the Natchez, 
however, took advantage of the truce to escape, some 
taking refuge among the Chickasaws and others cross- 
ing the Mississippi and fortifying themselves in what 
is now Catahoula Parish, on a mound between the junc- 
tion of Little Kiver with the Ouachita. They were fol- 
lowed by the French, and driven back to Lake Love- 
lace, where • they made a stand for nine months before 
they could be finally dislodged. Troops had arrived from 
France in the summer of 1730, and these to the number 
of eight hundred had been hurried to the seat of war. 
The last stand of the remnant of the Natchez was as 
heroic as all their former battles had been. The final 
victory, such as it was, was won by Perrier only through 
treachery. Some of the Natchez chiefs were decoyed into 
a trap, captured, and held as hostages. Perrier offered to 
spare their lives if the nation surrendered, promising life 
to every Indian who should give himself up. Forty-five 



86 LOUISIANA 

warriors and four hundred women and children finally 
came into the French camp, but the bulk of the fighters 
successfully eluded Perier, and fled westward, savagely 
attacking St. Denis at the Natchitoches. Repulsed by 
him, the remnant of the nation finally took refuge among 
the Chickasaws. The prisoners taken by the French 
were sold to slavery in St. Domingo, except a few w^ho 
were executed as examples or tortured by the Indian 
allies. One Natchez woman was publicly burned to 
death at New Orleans, by a party of Punicas with the 
consent of the French. 

The victory of the whites was only partial, however. 
The flight of the main fighting force of the Natchez to 
the Chickasaws and their welcome there could only mean 
war with that powerful nation. The crisis was felt to be 
so great that the Company of the Indies realized that 
they could no longer hope to cope with the situation or 
to make Louisiana a paying investment. In June, 1731, 
they petitioned the king to release them from their 
charter. By November, 1731, the transfer had been 
completed, and two delegates were sent out to examine 
the affairs of the Company with a view to liquidation. 
Several foolish and unjust measures were resorted to. 
Creditors were ordered to present their claims to the 
agents in Louisiana only. Then, on November 15th, 
1731, Perrier was ordered to issue a decree to the effect 
that the billets with which the debts of the Company 
had been paid would be withdrawn within fifteen days, 
that after that time they would be null and void, and 
that any person thereafter convicted of dealing in these 
notes would be fined for the first offense and subjected 
to corporal punishment for a repetition. This decree 
caused an immediate depreciation in the value of the 
notes, and their subsequent withdrawal left a vacuum in 
the currency of the colony which, combined with the gen- 
eral disaster of the times, brought the commercial life and 
prosperity of Louisiana again to the verge of ruin. 



SEAT OF GOVERNMENT AT NEW ORLEANS 87 

In the gloom of these evil days the hope of the colo- 
nists turned to Bienville. The absence of his strong hand 
and influence over the savages had been disastrously felt. 
His courage, energy, self-reliance, and ability were needed 
to sustain the weakness of the establishment. The king, 
therefore, appointed him first royal governor and sent him 
once again to Louisiana in the hope that his prestige 
might restore some degree of order and confidence, and 
that his skill and wide knowledge of the Indians, to- 
gether with the respect in which he was held by them, 
might perhaps enable him to quell the rising spirit of 
hostility among them which threatened the complete 
overthrow of the French power. 



CHAPTER IV 

liOUISIANA A ROYAL PROVINCE CESSION TO SPAIN 

On his way out to the colony, Bienville stopped at St. 
Domingo, and there saw some of his old friends, the 
Natchez chiefs, in slavery. They had known him in the 
days of their pride, and had venerated him as the great- 
est of the white chiefs. With sadness they told him how 
they regretted the old time of friendship and confidence, 
and protested that nothing but the unbearable tyranny of 
his ignorant successors would have driven them to such 
an act as the massacre at Fort Rosalie. 

There was much truth in the words of the enslaved 
warriors. Bienville found a changed condition of affairs. 
The trade with the natives had been allowed to so degen- 
erate that the more enterprising English had won most 
of the savage allies by making themselves and their goods 
indispensable, though the Indians who had once been 
under French influence always protested that they would 
cease to encourage the English traders if only the French 
would offer them the same advantages and goods at the 
same cheap price. The grasping policy of the Company 
of the Indies, however, had never supplied its agents with 
the necessary means of combating this rival influence, 
more dangerous than the power of many armies. Bien- 
ville saw with regret that the time for conciliatory mea- 
sures had passed, and that if the French wished to retain 
the prestige required for their own preservation, he must 
endeavor to crush the remaining Natchez and make war 
upon the Chickasaws if they continued to harbor the 
fugitives. 



A ROYAL PROVINCE 89 

But the attack which he planned with such care against 
the Chickasaw villages on the Tombigbee ended in dis- 
asteri D'Artagnette and his cooperative force from the 
Illinois were surprised and all save two were either killed 
in fight or burned at the stake afterwards. Then Bien- 
ville's Choctaw allies precipitated a conflict before the 
commander was ready, and his attack was disastrously 
repulsed. 

Bienville never recovered from the grief and humilia- 
tion of this defeat. He was made to feel, even in the 
colony, that his influence had been forever lost, and the 
enemies who were ever ready to oppose and thwart him 
found material for blame in his conduct of the expedi- 
tion. Even his old stanch friend, Diron D'Artagnette, 
laid the blame of his brother's tragic death at Bienville's 
door and became henceforth his bitter enemy. In the 
face of opposition and discouragement, however, Bienville 
determined to retrieve the mistakes of the last campaign 
and' set lustily to work to prepare another. He sent to 
Prance for artillery and troops, to Canada for the Indian 
fighters in whom he always placed his faith ; he dispatched 
coureiirs de hois over the country to rouse the sentiment 
of the Indian allies, and ordered a party of engineers to 
explore the country and select a better route by which 
to attack the Chickasaws. But when all was ready and 
the troops sent from Prance at last arrived, the command 
was taken from him and given to the Sieur de Noailles. 

This expedition, too, which went in 1739 against the 
Chickasaws by way of the Yazoo valley, was a failure. 
The army did not even reach the Indian villages or come 
to close quarters with the enemy. Even in the skirmishes 
that obstructed the line of march, the French came off 
badly, and were glad to make peace and return without 
even the glory of defeat. 

As much of the blame for the result of this campaign 
fell upon Bienville as upon De Noailles. Utterly dis- 
couraged and hopeless, he wrote to the Minister of Ma- 



90 LOUISIANA 

Tine begging to be finally recalled. While waiting for 
this order and for the coming of his successor, he devoted 
his last acts to the welfare of his people. He convened 
the Alabama chiefs at Mobile and bound them to peace, 
and tried heartily, though vainly, to induce the national 
government to establish a college for boys at New Or- 
leans and to cease the disastrous experiments in mone- 
tary legislation which periodically blasted the struggling 
trade of the colony. But his failure in even these wise 
recommendations served only to complete the bitterness 
which saddened his last days in the land for which he 
had given the hard labor of forty-five years and in which 
he had buried his youth, his hope, and his ambition for 
a future to which the changed present bore no resem- 
blance. It was with a feeling of relief that he handed 
over the authority to the Marquis de Vaudreuil on the 
10th of May, 1743, and left Louisiana forever. 

The marquis was a true royal governor in every sense 
of the word, yet his miniature reign was but an episode 
in his career among the larger events which threw the 
affairs of his isolated province into the background of 
insignificance. And this was probably his own view of 
his authority and his province. Europe was just entering 
upon another of the great series of international wars, 
that of the Austrian Succession ; but though England 
was drawn into the conflict against France in 1744, the 
American colonies took but small part in the quarrel be- 
yond the capture of Louisburg by the English colonists 
and the usual fomenting of Indian warfare on both sides. 
De Vaudreuil' s province was not directly affected by the 
war, and the governor was left free to rule as he chose 
until the needs of the final struggle in the north called 
him to a wider sphere of activity. He was a nobleman 
of genial nature and impulsive temperament. He at 
once established himself in official style that made the 
government house a miniature court. The formal cere- 
mony, military display, lavish entertainment, and mag- 



A ROYAL PROVINCE 91 

nificence with which he surrounded himself produced 
at first a stimulating impression upon the spectacle-lov- 
ing people. His charm and distinction of manner, the 
martial courtliness of his bearing, his generosity, his 
personal grace and assumption of the dignity of authority 
seemed to cast upon the long-neglected province a direct 
reflection of the glories of Versailles. The fact that such 
a man had accepted such a distant and apparently unim- 
portant office led people to believe that at last the king 
had turned the smiles of his favor upon Louisiana. Un- 
fortunately the people had little else by which to remem- 
ber the marquis, the Grand Marquis, as they called him, 
than this flash of transient splendor and the long-con- 
tinued tradition of the balls and dinners he gave at the 
government house. In the first belief, however, that the 
government now intended to give its patronage to Loui- 
siana, trade received a stimulus, especially as the efl'ects 
of the release from the heavy restrictions of the Company 
of the Indies now began to be felt. 'Agriculture was 
aided by the immigration of planters from St. Domingo, 
a measure formerly urged by Bienville. There were 
about this time, according to the account of the Eng- 
lish resident already quoted, six or seven sawmills near 
New Orleans giving fifty thousand boards a year and ten 
or twelve plantations producing some fifteen thousand 
pounds of indigo. The indigo crop was never successful 
in Louisiana, but planters were tempted to experiment 
with it, not only for the profits of the trade but also be- 
cause its cultivation occupied only six months out of the 
year and the slaves could be otherwise employed for the 
remainder of the time, usually in making rails and shin- 
gles, for which there was a steady demand. Besides cot- 
ton, the colony exported in a year five hundred pounds of 
pitch and tar ; two hundred thousand pounds of tobacco 
in the leaf and three thousand in ^' carrots ; " about 
twenty thousand pounds of salt ; and some seventy thou- 
sand pounds of furs, chiefly from the upper Mississippi 



92 LOUISIANA 

district. The Jesuits from Hispaniola had begun to raise 
successful crops of sugar-cane above the city, though rice, 
tobacco, and lumber continued to be the leading exports 
until Etienne de Bore was successful in granulating the 
cane-juice. The wax of the myrtle-berry was still an 
important article of trade, and the Jesuit fathers had a 
flourishing and beautiful plantation of the trees. 

De Vaudreuil attempted to infuse something of mil- 
itary discipline in the civil government, and interesting 
ordinances date from his time relative to the control of 
wine shops and saloons, the morals of the city of New 
Orleans, and the management of slaves. One ordinance 
in this connection is especially interesting in view of 
the prevalent belief that licentious relations not only 
existed but were tolerated between masters and their 
slaves, to wit : " Any Frenchman so infamous as to 
harbor a black slave for the purpose of inducing him 
or her to lead a scandalous life, shall be whipped by the 
public executioner, and without mercy sentenced to the 
public galleys for life." To De Yaudreuil, also, we owe 
the first levee-ordinance, compelling inhabitants to keep 
up the levees before their property under pain of confis- 
cation. The government also encouraged colonization 
and agriculture by material assistance to the small pro- 
prietors of new grants; and the concessions were wisely 
made no larger than the owner could profitably manage, 
usually forty arpents deep by eight or ten in front, and 
the grants were revoked in case the proprietor failed to 
tenant or improve the land. The colony was protected 
by an increased military force, and provision was made 
for the annual discharge of a specified number of sol- 
diers to whom grants of land and supplies were made 
upon condition that they established farms and homes. 

Nevertheless, in spite of all these measures, the au- 
gury was better than the fulfillment. By a census taken 
in 1744, the total white population of the whole vast 
province was estimated at 3200 and the black at 2030. 



A ROYAL PROVINCE 93 

The number of troops during De Vaudreuil's regime was 
increased from 800 to 2000. All the so-called statistics 
of this period are unsatisfactory and conflicting. The 
present census shows an unaccounted-for decrease in 
the white population since the Company of the Indies 
restored the province to the king in 1731, when the num- 
ber was estimated at 5000. But the prosperity of the 
colony Avas, for the time being, greater. In the city of 
New Orleans there were twenty-five men whose property 
ranged in value from 100,000 to 300,000 livres ; and had 
the government not persisted in its attempts to shirk its 
debts and to foist a worthless paper currency upon the 
people, the impulse of trade Avould have carried the 
establishment to prosperity. The chief source of weak- 
ness, however, was in the government itself. The reports 
and documents from which the historical student is com- 
pelled to reconstruct the condition of the times are 
chiefly a monotonous repetition of the petty quarrels of 
officials, contradictory and garbled accounts of petty hap- 
penings, and the meanest acts of mutual retaliation and 
interference. De Vaudreuil constantly complains that 
the Intendant kept the public stores for his own use and 
refused to surrender any for the bounties which the In- 
dians claimed as the price of their loyalty. The Intend- 
ant, on the other hand, especially the last one during 
De Vaudreuil's rule, Michel de la E-ouvilliere, states 
emphatically that the governor, in his attempts to rule 
en grand seigneur, had given the military such prece- 
dence over the civilians that soldiers might and did 
insult and bully the citizens with impunity ; that he had 
surrounded himself with a petty court of flatterers and 
dependents who held his favor and prevented justice 
from being done ; that these favorites were granted all 
the monopolies and privileges ; that the Superior Coun- 
cil was merely the legal instrument of the governor's 
illegal acts ; that he kept up an expensive private estab- 
lishment and in order to support it claimed a share in 



94 LOUISIANA 

all public enterprises and exacted tribute from private 
industries and from the agents who managed the gov- 
ernment's trade with the natives, as well as from the 
commanders of military posts under his appointment ; 
that the governor sold for his own profit the flour sent 
out for the soldiers, substituted corn in its place, and 
pocketed the difference in price ; and finally that the 
governor's wife, a haughty, avaricious woman, used her 
influence to procure the profit of many enterprises in 
which she was interested, sold offices and bought officials, 
and held a lucrative monopoly of the trade in drugs and 
other merchandise. From such a mass of scandal it is 
impossible to extract the truth, except that there were 
more rascals than honest men concerned in the mainte- 
nance of the French colonial interests in the Mississippi 
Valley. 

In 1753, when the growth of both French and Eng- 
lish colonies at the north made the final conflict appear 
inevitable, the marquis was ordered to assume the gov- 
ernorship of Canada, where his martial ability was more 
needed, and M. de Kerlerec was sent out to Louisiana in 
his place. 

The new governor was a naval officer who had seen 
twenty-five years of service. He was blufi*, abrupt, and 
accustomed to command, a martinet in discipline, rigidly 
honest, so far as appears, in spite of the usual charges 
brought against him and his final disgrace. He was not 
the man, however, to meet the critical issues of the 
troublous times about to begin. His first dispatches are 
full of complaints that the cabal which had worked 
against Bienville and De Vaudreuil had concentrated the 
increased strength of its opposition upon himself and that 
in making his appointments he had continually to face 
the same disgusting insinuations that had been aimed at 
De Vaudreuil. The Indians, too, had become unquiet. 
The former governor had been able to do nothing further 
than play the savage tribes off against each other and so 



A ROYAL PROVINCE 95 

prevent them from uniting against him, and now the 
presence of an increased number of English in the Ohio 
valley and even in the present states of Alabama and 
Mississippi had detached many of the allies and even af- 
fected the friendly Choctaws. Kerlerec called a conference 
of the chiefs and reproached them with their disloyalty, 
urging them to send away the English traders. They 
replied frankly that they preferred the French, but that 
the English offered them better and cheaper goods and 
so would have their trade. The governor made a full re- 
port of this conference to the government in France and 
urged, as Bienville had always done, that more money 
must be devoted to competing with the English for the 
favor of the natives. He saw clearly that the shadow of 
war hung over the colony and felt that, unless the alli- 
ances with the Indians were strengthened and efficient 
troops sent to the Mississippi, no earthly power would 
stay the progress of the English that was slowly and 
steadily eating away the French possessions, as it were, 
inch by inch. The greater part of the military force, 
also, had been withdrawn with De Vaudreuil, and the 
few troops were utterly incompetent to hold the colony 
against invasion. Kerlerec protested vehemently against 
the abandonment of the colony in the face of the increas- 
ing danger. In reading his dispatches one is forced to 
the conclusion that France sent to Louisiana only such 
worthless troops as she was eager to be rid of. Bienville, 
Perrier, and now Kerlerec complained that the wretched 
soldiery could never be got to face an enemy or else fled 
at the first fire. Kerlerec even begged that Swiss 
troops be sent to him in place of the French, not only 
on account of their superior discipline and fighting qual- 
ities, but because the colonists had as great a dread of the 
violence, cruelty, and debauchery of the troops ordinarily 
sent out from France as they had of the savages. The 
governor got nothing for his pains, however, beyond the 
ill-will of those in power, and he was compelled to pro- 



96 LOUISIANA 

tect his capital with only such defensive means as lay in 
his reach. A palisade was run about the city, the bat- 
tery at English Turn down the river was strengthened, 
and a vessel was moored near the head of the passes to 
be sunk in the channel in case an enemy should attempt 
an attack from the Gulf of Mexico. 

But France was in no position to bestow attention 
upon the distant province. The long series of interna- 
tional wars had settled none of the questions that had 
brought them about. Territorial boundaries in Europe, 
as well as in the colonies, were still uncertain, and the 
balance of power, though often shifted, had not yet been 
adjusted to a state of even temporary equilibrium. On 
the continent, the growth of Prussia under Frederick the 
Great made inevitable the final conflict that was to 
leave the new power free to weld the German race into 
a natural empire. In North America the growth of the 
colonies of France and England had made the subjection 
of one necessary to the existence of the other, and in 
India also the same nations were brought to conflict by 
the opposing interests of their commerce. 

So far as France and England were concerned, the 
new war was to be colonial, though France, as a nation, 
seems not to have realized this until too late. In spite 
of her half-hearted interest, and in spite of the many 
mistakes of short-sighted officials, her pioneers had won 
for her the greater part of the North American conti- 
nent, and the whole vast semicircle was bound together 
by a chain of forts, and held in communication by a 
hardy race of woodsmen and friendly savages. It had 
been the plan of La Salle, of Iberville, and Bienville, to 
weld this vast territory into a compact mass, and con- 
fine the English colonies to the seaboard. Forts at 
Louisburg, Niagara, Frontenac, and Duquesne protected 
Canada, and threatened the northern Atlantic settle- 
ments. New Orleans blocked the way up the Missis- 
sippi. Mobile gave France the vantage of the Gulf of 



A ROYAL PROVINCE 97 

Mexico. The one gap in the chain was the valley of the 
Ohio, and into this vacuum the pressure of growth of 
the English colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia was 
forced. Settlements had been made there, trading-posts 
established, the Indians won from the French, and the 
territory as vehemently claimed by right of actual pos- 
session as the French claimed it by right of discovery 
and exploration. Thus when Celoron de Bienville made 
his progress through the Ohio territory, in a vain attempt 
to induce the Indians to drive out the English, he real- 
ized that nothing but superior force could make good, 
against the firm hold of the newcomers, the claim which 
France based upon the brilliant enterprise of her early 
explorers but had never substantiated by possession and 
colonization. 

As usual the French were quicker in action than their 
enemies, and when Washington, in 1754, before war had 
been formally declared, marched into the Ohio country 
at the head of Virginia troops, he was met by a superior 
force and compelled to surrender. De Vaudreuil, more- 
over, with great skill so placed his inadequate forces 
along the whole vast extent of the frontier as not only 
to hold back the English on the eastern side of the Alle- 
ghany range, but to force them to attack separately his 
widely divided posts, and so weaken their strength. 
French victories followed in rapid succession. Braddock's 
force was crushed in its attempt against Fort Duquesne 
at the head of the disputed valley, the fiery Montcalm 
took Fort William Henry, and the first years of the war 
found the French victorious everywhere, — Crown Point 
and Ticonderoga in New York in their possession, and 
their power apparently established from Nova Scotia to 
New Orleans. 

The French colonies in America, however, were con- 
scious of an internal weakness which the brilliant suc- 
cess of leaders such as Montcalm had concealed from all 
but the shrewdest of their enemies. Even Louisiana, 



98 LOUISIANA 

distant as she was from the seat of actual war, lay in the 
horror of its huge shadow, and found herself deserted by 
the mother country ; for France had been drawn into 
the European coalition against the growing power of 
Frederick of Prussia, had cast her fortunes, because of 
a whim of the Pompadour and against all her interests, 
on the side of her ancient enemy Austria ; and though 
the English and Prussians had met great reverses, still the 
great genius of Frederick, his splendid armies, and the 
wealth which England poured out for his assistance 
augured that the struggle was but the beginning of a 
war for which France would be compelled to drain her 
resources as never before in her history. The one fatal 
mistake was made in concentrating all of her greatest 
strength upon the war against Prussia, thus leaving Eng- 
land free to wrest from her both India and North 
America. Louisiana, the most obscure and the most neg- 
lected of her colonies, was altogether abandoned, and its 
inhabitants, though spared the horrors of actual war, had 
nevertheless to bear the almost equally heavy burden of 
standing idle and forsaken while they watched the struc- 
ture for which many among them had given the best 
years of their lives fall away piece by piece for sheer 
neglect. The few soldiers left in the place were of the 
most worthless sort, and seem to have been equally 
feared and hated. 

Kerlerec's arbitrary treatment of influential colonists 
increased the opposition against him. Fatality turned one 
of his own hasty acts against himself and gave his ene- 
mies in France the power which finally threw him in the 
Bastile. It will be remembered that Jews had been for- 
bidden the colony by the first code of laws. Now about 
this time a certain Diaz Anna, a Spanish Jew, had come 
to New Orleans with a shipload of goods for trade. The 
Intendant, E-ochemore, seized the vessel and confiscated 
her cargo. Kerlerec sent soldiers to the vessel and had her 
restored to her owner. He then arrested Belot, Marigny 



A ROYAL PROVINCE 99 

de Mandeville, Lahoupe, Bossii, and others of Roche- 
more's friends on the ground that they were in league to 
assume illegal authority, and sent them to Europe with 
documents which he fancied would convict them. The 
vessel, however, was driven by a storm to the coast of 
Spain, and in some way the prisoners got possession of 
the papers which contained Kerlerec's evidence against 
them. Moreover, they succeeded in arousing sympathy 
for themselves for the harsh treatment to which they 
had been subjected, and formed in France an active centre 
of infection for spreading distrust of the governor in 
the minds of the national officials. 

While Kerlerec was busy with his quarrels with Roche- 
more, harassed by the violent bickerings of the Jesuits 
and Capuchins, and driven to his wits' end to supply 
the long-neglected tribute to the disaffected Indian al- 
lies, the colony was thrown into deeper discouragement 
by the arrival of the remnant of the garrison of Fort 
Duquesne with news of the defeat of the French armies 
and the increasing success of the English. 

Indeed a new force had made itself felt in the war; a 
new power had taken direction of the affairs of England, 
had seen that the real contest was to be in America, and 
had at last roused the colonies to an active sense of their 
own strength. William Pitt, trained, as he was, alike in 
diplomatic and military affairs, was the man most capable 
of guiding England and her American possessions through 
the crisis. He listened closely to the appeal of Franklin : 
^' There is no hope of repose for our thirteen colonies as 
long as the French are masters of Canada." He not only 
answered this appeal by sending his best generals and best 
troops, but did the future nation a far greater service by 
calling upon them to take their full part in the war and 
the gains of the hoped-for victory. For the first time the 
hitherto discordant and disunited colonies felt a sense of 
their own power and kindred interests in repelling their 
common enemy. They raised an army of 20,000 men, 

Lore. 



100 LOUISIANA 

who did splendid service. They taxed themselves for the 
support of this army. The French colonials, on the other 
hand, hopelessly outnumbered and abandoned by France, 
could not check the new power that was hurled against 
them. Disputing desperately every inch of ground under 
the brilliant leadership of Montcalm, they wxre none the 
less forced to yield post after post — Louisburg, Duquesne, 
Fort Frontenac, Fort Niagara, Crown Point, and Ticon- 
deroga — till at last Montcalm fell with Quebec, and 
De Yaudreuil surrendered at Montreal. The war, still 
raging in Europe, was now (1760) ended in America. 
Canada was in the hands of the English, the officers had 
been sent back to France, and the armies had been cut 
to pieces. 

Louisiana had not been taken, but France felt that she 
could no longer hold this isolated strip of territory. The 
colony itself was now in a wretched condition and prac- 
tically at the mercy of any enemy. In October, 1761, the 
French ambassador at the court of Madrid offered a me- 
morial confessing that France could no longer support 
Louisiana, and begging the assistance of Spain to supply 
its necessary wants and prevent it from falling into the 
hands of the English, against whom it stood, so asserted 
the memorial, as a bulwark for the Spanish colonies of 
the west. Kerlerec had long been at his wits' end to pro- 
vide provisions for the clamoring and discontented natives 
or even for his own men. He had accused the Intendant, 
Kochemore, of withholding supplies, and the breach be- 
tween the two officials was widened. The hope of Spanish 
aid and the knowledge that Spain held the question under 
advisement led him to promise the Indians the renewal 
of former bounties. But no help came from Spain, and 
the perplexity of the harassed governor and the discontent 
of the unhappy colony grew daily greater. 

But France, still involved in the disastrous war in 
Europe, was unable to help or even offer any hope to 
Louisiana. Not only was the government compelled to 



A ROYAL PROVINCE 101 

meet ever-increasing losses and drains upon its dimin- 
ishing resources, but had to face and satisfy, in some sort, 
the popular indignation, which was now fully aroused, in 
a demand for the punishment of those who were respon- 
sible for the misconduct of the war and bent upon throw- 
ing off all burdens that interfered with self-preservation. 
The colonial armies and officials returned to a France that 
was in the wrath of despair. More than a dozen of the most 
prominent officials of the Canadian government, among 
them De Vaudreuil, were indicted for the general corrup- 
tion whose evil results were now realized for the first 
time, and were thrown into the Bastile, less, perhaps, 
because of any aroused sense of" justice than because of 
the need of the government to provide scapegoats to 
satisfy the discontent of the people. Small satisfaction, 
however, was gained by the conviction and heavy pun- 
ishment of most of these men, for the inevitable fact 
remained that the hopes of the nation as a great colonial 
powder were forever at an end. The Due de Choiseul, now 
at the head of French affairs, busied himself to secure 
peace with England, the detachment of Frederick's allies, 
and the assistance of Spain in the event that his other 
efforts should fail. Ferdinand VI had died in 1759, and 
Carlos III was now king. Being of the Bourbon blood, 
he was induced in 1761 to contract a family alliance by 
which the Bourbons of France and Spain pledged mutual 
assistance, especially against England. When, therefore, 
the efforts of Choiseul failed to secure peace in spite of 
the favor of the new king, George III, and in spite 
of the retirement of Pitt, Spain, in 1762, declared war 
against England, but only to meet defeat from the Brit- 
ish navy in the Gulf of Mexico and to lose Havana, her 
chief hold upon that region. The entrance of Spain into 
the war had but little military significance, for her action 
was offset by the peace which Bussia made with Fred- 
erick, and did not prevent the English from extending 
their American conquests over the whole of the Gulf 



102 LOUISIANA 

of Mexico, ending in the possession of Martinique, Gren- 
ada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent, as well as Havana. 

The strain of this stupendous war, however, had ex- 
hausted all parties ; the questions which had caused it 
were now practically settled ; Prussia had won its right 
to become the centre of the German nation, and England 
had established her claims, or at least had proven her 
power to enforce them, over North America and India. 
The commissioners of France and Spain met those of Eng- 
land at Paris in 1763 and drew up an agreement whereby 
Prance ceded to England the greater part of India and 
all of her territory east of the Mississippi, adding to this 
the right of free navigation of the Mississippi. Of all 
her vast territory she retained only Louisiana, including 
JSTew Orleans and the practical island of land lying east 
of the river between Manchac, the river, and the Lakes. 
By the same treaty, Spain ceded Plorida to England in 
return for the restoration of Havana. 

The question of Louisiana yet remained to be settled. 
France could now no longer support the colony with the 
English at the very walls of its capital and with English 
vessels and commerce monopolizing the river. Moreover, 
Spain was discontented over the territorial losses with 
which she had. paid for her friendship to France. France, 
therefore, offered Louisiana to Spain for the double pur- 
pose of saving it from the clutches of the English and of 
recompensing her ally for the loss of Florida, and on the 
same day on which the Treaty of Paris was signed, ceded 
the province to Spain, though the transfer was made 
chiefly by virtue of Article 18 of the Family Pact of 
1761, by which the power coming to the aid of the other 
should be indemnified for losses. Nevertheless Spain 
showed small interest in her new possessions, whose 
vague boundaries to the north and west were not even 
defined in the act of cession. 

Thus Louisiana remained abandoned by the mother 
country and unclaimed by the new sovereign. Even the 



A ROYAL PROVINCE 103 

fact of the cession was not made known to the people, 
though they felt instinctively that some great change 
was taking- place. As in the case of Canada, the blame 
for the failure of the colony to justify the hopes of its 
owners was laid against the colonial officials. Kerlerec 
was recalled and thrown into the Bastile. His successor, 
D'Abadie, was called merely Director General, and the 
French military force was reduced to three hundred and 
served merely to guard the king's stores and protect the 
royal interests. One can imagine the apprehension of 
the colonists as the Spaniards retired from Florida, the 
very names of whose fortresses were changed by the new 
masters ; the sound of the new names must have been 
ominous of a more gloomy future — Fort Conde at Mobile 
changed to Fort Charlotte, Fort Natchez to Fort Panmure, 
Pensacola to Fort St. George ; and with what bitterness 
must the old inhabitants have watched party after party 
come in from the abandoned posts of the Illinois, Ala- 
bama, and Mississippi. Many of the French settlers and 
friendly Indians in the ceded territory refused to take 
the oath of allegiance to England and came to settle about 
New Orleans. Even that place felt the effects of the 
great change that had taken place, for the British 
promptly established Fort Bute at Manchac, and soon 
English vessels began to appear on the river. On pre- 
text of going up to Fort Bute or the now English post 
at the Natchez, English traders came into the river and 
began to drive a thriving illicit trade with the French 
colonies. The boats would tie up at the bank near Lit- 
tle Manchac, as the place was called, and the merchants 
and buyers of the town flocked to take advantage of the 
unusual opportunity. So general was the illegal trade, 
and so necessary was it to the now deserted colony, that no 
one, not even the officers of the government, made any 
secret of '' going to Little Manchac." 

The American colonies, relieved now of the fear of 
France and free to occupy the west, began a steady pro- 



104 LOUISIANA 

gress of immigration into the valley of the Mississippi. 
The loosening of the chain of forts whereby Prance had 
held them shut in behind the Alleghanies resulted in 
the immediate territorial expansion which soon made 
the group of colonies a nation and gave them the feeling 
of independence which enabled them to throw off the 
control of England. Green's statement is no exaggeration, 
that '' with the triumph of Wolfe on the Heights of 
Abraham began the history of the United States ; for by 
removing an enemy whose dread had knit the colonists 
to the mother country and by breaking through the line 
with which France had barred them from the basin of 
the Mississippi, Pitt laid the foundation of the great re- 
public of the west." Nothing now stood in the way of 
their ultimate nationality save the province of Louisiana, 
and as yet the necessity of its possession was not com- 
pletely felt. 

The people of Louisiana remained in ignorance of the 
disposition that had been made of them until, in 1764, 
D'Abadie received official announcement that the pro- 
vince now belonged to Spain and should be surrendered 
whenever authorized officials presented themselves. It is 
easy to conceive the dismay of the Louisianians. While 
they retained that love and loyalty towards Prance which 
has always prevented the Prench from becoming good 
colonists, they had nevertheless developed in their isola- 
tion a distinct character, and had been taught by experi- 
ence a greater reliance upon their own leaders than upon 
the distant national government. Thus it was hard for 
them to realize that they had been abandoned, and their 
first impulse was towards a passionate protest of loyalty 
as Prenchmen ; but when it began to dawn upon them 
that their king had indifferently bartered them to Spain, 
whom they had learned to scorn, another feeling, that of 
resistance, began to gather force. 

In the midst of the gloom and depression, a party of 
twenty Acadians landed at New Orleans after almost ten 



A ROYAL PROVINCE 105 

years of exile from their homes. Their arrival came as 
an ill omen, for they too had been abandoned by France, 
torn from their country, and scattered among the Eng- 
lish colonies by their new masters until the end of the 
war allowed them to seek refuge among folk of their 
own speech and faith. Others came and settled in the 
Attakapas, Lafourche, and Opelousas districts, and on 
the German coast ; but the tales of misery, exile, and 
separation which they told must have had their effect in 
determining the Louisianians to resist the Spanish. 

In 1765, D'Abadie died, and as no one was sent in 
his place, Aubry, the senior captain of the petty military 
force, assumed command, while the colony waited in 
expectation of some move on the part of Spain. 



CHAPTEE V 

THE REVOLUTION OF '68 

In the present anxiety little reliance was placed upon 
Aubry. As a matter of fact, he was not a civil officer and 
had risen to the direction of affairs merely by chance. 
He was a soldier whose record in the late war was good, 
but his virtues were military obedience and submission to 
authority rather than those powers of initiative and di- 
rection which constitute administrative ability. His chief 
characteristic seems to have been compliance with au- 
thority, and this sufficiently explains the disregard which 
the people felt and showed towards him as well as his 
own conduct in the tragic drama which followed, though 
in it the memory of the people has assigned him the role 
of traitor and traditional villain.^ 

How isolated from France the colony had become and 
how ignorant they were of the state of affairs in the king- 
dom, and especially of the vicious, uncaring life of that 
cryptic court of Louis XY, is shown in the resolution to 
appeal directly to their sovereign. In these years of strug- 
gle with the simple forces of nature in the wilderness, 
working out for themselves in their little civilization a 
life of almost primitive simplicity, the people seem to 
have crowned with a halo of illusion that distant Paris, 
and invested their ideal of the far-off king with infinite 
power and infinite benevolence. The very name — Louis 
— pictured to them the royal father of Louisiana. In 
their own eyes they were still the children of the king. 
They were inevitably some twenty years behind the times, 

1 Cf. Champignj'-, Etat present de la Louisiane (1776), p. 38. 



THE REVOLUTION OF '68 107 

for the king was still to them " Louis the Well-Be- 
loved," whom all France had prayed for in that illness 
of 1744, but whom France now remembered only to 
curse. What more pitiful illusion could be than the 
poetic resolve of these people to lay their protestations of 
loyalty, and their petition not to be cast off among stran- 
gers, at the feet of a king shut up even from the sight 
of his closest subjects in a mysterious court whose secret, 
nameless vices were too unnatural for the sight of even 
Paris. Far from the sight of those shameless officials who 
ruled the kingdom, far from the sound of the groans and 
curses of the wretched peasantry of France, whose starva- 
tion-dreams were already made yet more hideous by the 
lust of blood and revenge, the Louisianians could not 
realize that France lay crushed and helpless, beaten by 
the enemy without and plagued within by the devils that 
possessed her. Yet, incredible as it may now seem, it 
was to this king and this nation that the people of the 
forsaken colony appealed in the obsolete names of loyalty, 
pity, patriotism, and kinship. 

Lafreniere, the attorney-general, a man of eloquence 
and eager independence, was the leader in this move- 
ment. Seconded by Villerd, by the two Milhets, Doucet, 
the Chevalier d'Arensbourg, Lesassier, Caresse, De la 
Chaise, Marquis, Masan, Poupet, Boisblanc, De Noyan, 
and many others of the prominent men of the province, 
he called a convention of delegates from the outlying 
parishes to meet in New Orleans. To the eager assembly 
Lafreniere, in an earnest speech, proposed a set of reso- 
lutions which were unanimously adopted and given to 
Jean Milhet to take to France and lay before the king. 
Milhet made all possible haste with this credulous expres- 
sion of loyalty to get to Paris and seek out Bienville, 
now an old man living in quiet obscurity. Together the 
venerable father of New Orleans and its young repre- 
sentative sallied forth to lay the impassioned appeal of 
Louisiana before the king. Louis was, of course, inacces- 



108 LOUISIANA 

sible, locked in his palace with his secret vices like some 
fabulous Minotaur in the depths of an impenetrable 
labyrinth, hedged in from all approach and knowledge 
of his kingdom by many satellites. Bienville and Milhet 
considered themselves fortunate to reach at last the all- 
powerful Due de Choiseul. To him they made their 
appeal and begged his influence to gain them an audience 
with the king. With his usual suavity he heard their 
arguments and showed them the greatest kindness, finally 
sending them away with the promise of his assistance. 
But neither Bienville nor Milhet could know how dead 
the cynical heart of Choiseul was to such feelings as 
burned from the written words of the petition, nor did 
they know that the act of cession to Spain was the secret 
work of Choiseul himself, and that he had this additional 
motive for suppressing the petition. With excuses, eva- 
sions, and promises, Milhet Avas put off week after week 
until a full year had passed, and his petition had been 
seen by none but Choiseul. Still he haunted the ante- 
chamber of the great minister, and fed his hopes upon 
the promises which that masterful intriguer knew so 
well to make. 

Meanwhile, as the Spaniards had made no move to 
claim their acquisition, the hopes of the people in the 
colony began to revive. No news from Milhet, in this 
light, was taken as good news. Suddenly, however, in 
July, 1765, came a letter from Don Antonio de Ulloa 
in Havana, informing the Superior Council that he had 
orders from the king to go to Louisiana and take posses- 
sion for Spain. Yet it was March of the following year 
(1766) when a single frigate brought the Don and a 
paltry escort of ninety men to New Orleans. The negli- 
gent attitude of Spain was already a puzzle to the people, 
and her method of taking possession as well as the in- 
different conduct of her representative merely served to 
deepen the doubt and discontent. Ulloa was given a 
cold but courteous reception, while the people watched 



THE REVOLUTION OF '68 109 

him with undisguised distrust ; for, when the Superior 
Council had asked for his commission or credentials 
authorizing him to act for the country which he was sup- 
posed to represent, he refused to show them or, indeed, 
to treat with the Council at all, seeming to recognize 
only the military authority vested in Aubry. It appeared 
later that Ulloa had been sent out almost unsupported, 
upon the belief that the French troops in Louisiana 
would enlist in the Spanish service, and that the colony 
was entirely willing to transfer its allegiance. The very 
fact, however, that he came so tardily and without show 
of power or authority caused instant distrust, and led the 
soldiers to refuse to enlist under him. He was cold, 
reserved, and proud, but the source of his dignity — his 
reputation as a man of learning and science — was all 
unknown to Louisiana, and therefore his assumption of 
authority, unsupported by any appearance, was taken to 
be mere arrogance or pretension. He thus found himself, 
mostly by his own fault, in a very awkward position, 
but was not the man to better such a situation. On the 
contrary, he informed Aubry that he would not take for- 
mal possession until he had been reinforced, and in the 
mean time withdrew himself from all contact with the 
people, refused to treat with the civil authorities, but 
kept firm hold upon Aubry, whose prompt submission 
and instinctive obedience to superiority made him a 
ready instrument for practically ruling the colony. Ulloa 
made a tour of the parishes, posts, and forts of the pro- 
vince, and took a census of the city, which showed 5552 
inhabitants. Moreover, although the French flag had 
never been lowered at the capital, and though he had 
not formally taken possession, he felt encouraged by the 
submission of Aubry and the inactivity of th& people to 
assume a more decided attitude. He advanced money 
to Aubry to pay the soldiers, as France had long ceased to 
make remittances, and even went so far as to issue a sort 
of prospectus, as it were, of the ordinances regulating trade 



110 LOUISIANA 

which Spain customarily imposed upon her colonies and 
which were soon to be established in Louisiana. It was 
announced that no vessels should enter the port without 
submitting to him a full report and valuation of cargoes ; 
that the trade of the colony was to be carried on solely 
in Spanish-built vessels manned and owned by Spanish 
subjects, and should be restricted to six designated ports 
of the Spanish peninsula ; and that vessels leaving Loui- 
siana were forbidden to enter even a Spanish- American 
port, save only in great distress, and then only under 
strict supervision and the payment of heavy charges. 

Ulloa had thus confirmed the fears which the people 
had felt since the first rumors of cession. They had 
had abundant opportunity to observe the disastrous 
effects of Spanish trade-laws upon- such colbnies as Pen- 
sacola ; for themselves they had dreaded this interference 
perhaps even more than the thoughts of submitting to 
the rigid domination of church and state which was sup- 
posed always to accompany Spanish possession. The 
merchants and ship captains of New Orleans met and 
sent a petition to the Superior Council, begging a sus- 
pension of Ulloa's ordinance until they had had time to 
prepare their case and be heard. No definite action was 
taken, as Ulloa was of course unable to enforce his de- 
crees, and was compelled to content himself with an- 
nouncing them and waiting for further support from his 
government. On the other hand, the people, waiting 
for some word of encouragement from the still absent 
Milhet, and yet hoping against hope, hesitated between 
submission and resistance. 

Meanwhile, Ulloa left New Orleans and established 
himself at the Balize, near the mouth of the river, to 
wait for his afiianced bride, the Duchess D'Abrado, a 
lady of fabulous beauty and wealth, who was to come to 
him from the marvelous land of Peru. As the lady 
tarried for seven months, the expectant lover waited 
patiently for her at the swamp-girt pilot settlement, while 



THE REVOLUTION OF '68 111 

the truckling Anbry was kept anxiously busy running 
back and forth to get secret instructions and to execute 
them. The province, thus left to itself, began to hope 
that the evident carelessness which Spain showed per- 
haps meant that the cession was not actually to be con- 
summated. In truth, Spain had shown less eagerness 
in taking Louisiana than France in her determination to 
be rid of a colony which she could no longer support; 
and while Milhet was still waiting in Paris with his yet 
unheard petition, France was endeavoring to induce 
Spain to pay all the expenses of the colony since 1763.^ 
So evident was Choiseul's intention to abandon Louisi- 
ana, that finally even Milhet gave up hope and returned 
to announce to his countrymen that their petition had 
not even been shown to the king and to convince them 
that their antiquated ideas of patriotism, loyalty, and 
devotion were but so many laughable chimeras to the 
France of Louis XY. 

It was now the winter of 1768. As is usual at such 
times of crisis, the imaginations of the people saw in 
the phenomena of nature presages of coming disaster. 
The months of January and February were the coldest 
ever known. Orange-trees throughout the province were 
frozen and killed, and the city was astounded at the sight 
of huge blocks of ice tumbling in the sullen current of the 
river. In the agitation of public feeling, small happen- 
ings acquired the significance of events. One is not sur- 
prised to learn that the people found Ulloa's new wife 
even more cold, haughty, and exclusive than the man of 
science, her husband, and her arrival was the cause of 
purely social dissensions which, in a city having the 
temperament and French heritage of New Orleans, had 
the importance of political acts. As the Spanish com- 
mander had drawn upon himself the dislike and distrust 
of the men, so his gorgeous wife now stirred to activity 

1 See letter of Grimaldi in Gayarr^'s Histoire de la Lomsiane, ii, 
160. 



112 LOUISIANA 

the no less potent resentment of the women. In the 
very act of his marriage, too, celebrated at the Balize by 
the chaplain of the vessel that brought the lady, the 
Church of Louisiana found cause of complaint ; and there 
remains a curious deposition of Father Dagobert, the 
Capuchin superior, to the effect that this marriage, cele- 
brated in complete disregard of both the civil and the ec- 
clesiastical authorities, had caused great scandal to the 
people, and led timorous minds to fear the time when the 
nation whose representative could so defy conventional 
morality should control the welfare of the colony. There 
were, however, deeper forces at work among the people 
than even themselves perhaps knew at the time. As 
long as they had been a part of France, there had been 
no thoughts of an existence apart from hers. Independ- 
ence or alliance with the English colonies would have 
seemed alike impossible and undesirable, had such ideas 
been suggested 5 but in the present hard case, when they 
felt themselves abandoned by their countrymen and 
ignored by their new masters, the people began to con- 
sider the alternatives of independence or perhaps of an 
appeal to the English. The first hints of the new spirit 
are found in the crude and hastily drawn up declaration 
adopted by a convention called in New Orleans on Octo- 
ber 29, 1768, by Lafreniere, the two Milhets, and Doucet. 
This convention, like the former, was composed of dele- 
gates from all the neighboring parishes, and was peaceful 
in character and intent, save that some Acadians and 
Germans from the Cote des AUemands came in with 
their guns so as to be prepared for any opposition from 
the Spanish or from Aubry's French troops. This con- 
vention was fully representative of all classes, and in its 
resolutions was embodied the first expression of the will 
of the people. The resolutions were in the form of a 
declaration of grievances against Ulloa's informal as- 
sumption of authority, as well as a petition to the Supe- 
rior Council to assure the colony of its former rights, 



THE REVOLUTION OF '68 113 

especially those of trade and commerce, and to declare 
Uiloa a usurper and bid him depart. In words that Avere 
unmistakable was expressed the idea which throughout 
the world was undermining the thrones of kings, the 
idea which was drawing the American colonies into 
union, and which was later to create the republics of the 
United States and France itself, that governments are 
not for the rulers but for the people, that in any act 
touching their welfare the voice of the people should 
decide, and that, in the words of Lafreniere, '^ Parlia- 
ments and Superior Councils are the depositaries of the 
laws under whose sanction the people may live in hap- 
piness ; they are the natural protectors, by law, of honest 
citizens. '^ The Council concurred in the will of the con- 
vention, declared itself dissatisfied Avith Ulloa's claims 
to authority, and ordered him to leave the colony. The 
Council apparently acted in this way under the impres- 
sion that France had imposed some conditions upon 
Spain in regard to the government of Louisiana, and 
had made thereby some provision for their special wel- 
fare before ceding the territory; but as a matter of fact 
the colony had been hastily and unconditionally sur- 
rendered to Spain, and Aubry, who was perhaps better 
informed, protested against the action of the Council, 
apparently for the reason that he knew that the little 
handful of colonists, alone and unaided, could not hope 
to offer more than a fatal resistance to Spain. He con- 
sented, however, to Ulloa's departure, but only, as he 
said, for fear that violence might be done him. There- 
fore, escorted by Aubry's troops, the Spaniard went 
aboard a French frigate lying in the river, his own 
vessel being laid up for repairs. On the march to the 
levee he was offered no violence or abuse. There were 
heard along the streets only a few shouts, "Long live 
Louis, the Well-Beloved ! " Three of Ulloa's officers, 
Loyola, Navarro, and Gayarre, were allowed to re- 
main in the city as Spanish representatives until the 



114 LOUISIANA 

question of possession could be finally settled. Thus, 
without bloodshed or violence, was accomplished the 
so-called '' Eevolution of 'QSJ^ But the vessel containing 
Ulloa's hated presence still lay before the city, an omi- 
nous reminder of Spanish rule. Thus the ship lay 
moored to the bank until November 1st. At daybreak 
that morning, a party of young men who had passed the 
night in revels that had begun at a wedding supper, 
passed along the levee. They halted before the ship, 
sang patriotic French songs, and hooted their triumph at 
the silent, motionless hulk. Finally, one of their number 
was roused to such zeal that he cut the cable which held 
the ship to the landing. Instantly the current caught 
her and bore her out to midstream, amid the hoots of the 
young men. She drifted some distance before her sailors 
could be roused and could anchor her. There she re- 
mained until midday, but then, without further leave- 
taking, hoisted sail for Cuba to report the whole matter 
to the Spanish government. 

On the 22d of November, 1768, the Superior Council 
directed one of its members, Lesassier, to go to France 
and present to Due de Praslin, Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, the decree expelling Ulloa, and a new memorial 
which condemned that commander's conduct in the 
strongest terms and reiterated Louisiana's loyalty to 
France. Praslin was begged to lay before the king an 
appended petition which cited in detail their complaints 
against Ulloa's oppression, especially his treatment of, 
certain Acadians whom he had banished. Gayarre 
calls the petition exaggerated, but an unprejudiced read- 
ing of the document reveals nothing but sincerity and 
intense, though misplaced, devotion to a worthless king 
and an indifferent fatherland. This petition also never 
reached the king, though it was so extensively circu- 
lated about Paris that the Spanish government com- 
plained. Foucault, a trimmer throughout the whole 
affair, and Aubry, still cautious and subservient, sent 



THE REVOLUTION OF '68 115 

reports to the government. Both, however, assert that 
Ulloa was to be blamed for his attitude towards the 
people. Now that he had been dismissed, Ulloa ap- 
peared to Aubry not to have "the qualities that are 
necessary to rule the French." He says also that Ulloa's 
conduct had justified the impression that the Spaniards 
intended to rule as masters, and that '' instead of at- 
tempting to gain their (i. e. the people's) hearts, a thing 
which is absolutely necessary in a change of government, 
he has done everything he could to alienate them." 
According to Aubry's report, the colony was in a mis- 
erable condition of depression at being abandoned by 
France. The whole colony, he said, wished to remain 
French, "except the officers of the army, a handful of 
old soldiers who are faithful to me, and a small num- 
ber of worthy people who are united with me." In this 
report it is evident that he wishes to carry out the 
orders of his government in every particular, and to 
express his willingness to assist the Spanish ; yet, in view 
of the sudden determination of the people, he does not 
yet dare to go utterly against them, for their motives 
had hitherto been purely patriotic and loyal to France. 
He nevertheless calls the events of the 28th and 29th 
October a " revolt," and says that on these days nine 
hundred armed men were ready for resistance, had he 
dared to oppose them with his troops. From Havana, 
Ulloa wrote to Spain that upon his arrival at New 
Orleans he had been warned by Aubry of the intract- 
able character of the people, and that he had found this 
true. He states also that before the uprising he had been 
informed that Noyan and young Bienville (nephews of 
the old governor), together with Masan, had gone to 
Mobile and begged aid of the English, in their rebellion, 
to form a "republic under the protection of England; 
but failing in this hope, they had resolved to rebel and 
trample under foot the orders of their sovereign." 

The refusal of the English, if such a request were 



116 LOUISIANA 

indeed made to them, is easily iinderstood. Their own 
colonies, now freed from fear of the French in Canada, 
had begun to show an ominous spirit of independence, 
and the government, no doubt, felt that the presence of 
a strong power, like Spain, in the south and west, might 
prevent them from final separation from the mother 
country. 

The news contained in Ulloa's bitter report stirred 
Spain at once to activity. A council of ministers was 
called — the Duke of Alba, the Marquis de Grimaldi, and 
Count Aranda among others. They decided that Louisiana 
was to be retained and that the most effective measures 
should be adopted. Grimaldi, writing^ to the Count de 
Fuentes, Spanish ambassador to France, after enumerating 
the advantages which the possession of Louisiana offered 
to Spain, states that Ulloa had arrived and made a full 
report, and that it now remained for Spain formally to 
take possession, as Ulloa had not done so. He reports 
also that the council had reached the following decision 
in regard to the rebels : ''To punish the rashness of 
the people and the offense which they had given to the 
government and to subdue the rebels by force. '^ The 
memorial further states that Don Alexander O'Heilly 
had already set out for Louisiana, with orders to take 
whatever troops were necessary, and to draw further 
upon Havana if he saw fit, to banish from the colony all 
persons likely to give trouble in future and to form 
a government, but that 0'E,eilly was ordered in punish- 
ing the leaders of the revolution to " act with the great- 
est clemency and to content himself with banishing from 
the colony those who deserved a greater punishment." 

Meanwhile, Louisiana still retained some hope all the 
while that O'Reilly and his army were speeding west- 
ward. They still relied upon French intercession. Au- 
bry, evidently uneasy in spirit, wrote in February, 1769, 
to Buccarelly, captain-general of Cuba, hoping that Ulloa 

1 Gayarr^'s Histoire de la Louislane, ii. 265. 



THE REVOLUTION OF '68 117 

had done justice to his (Aubry's) services to Spain, 
'' since no one venerates and loves the Spanish nation 
more than I do." He said, moreover : " This revolu- 
tion dishonors the French of Louisiana," and suggested 
that the leaders ought to be punished " as they deserve." 
There must have been some reaction of the public feel- 
ing after the decisive action of the Council had finally 
flung defiance at Spain, and some of the more timorous 
must have thought it wiser to sail with the wind under 
Aubry's skillful pilotage; for when, in December, the 
plucky Council ordered Aubry to send away the Spanish 
frigate that had remained for repairs, Aubry had a force 
of four hundred men and refused to let the vessel sail, 
whereas he had had but one hundred at the beginning of 
the trouble. 

As time passed and no word of encouragement came 
from France, and the success of the revolution seemed 
more doubtful, Foucault began to show some uneasiness 
for the part he had played in it, and wrote to Praslin 
(March 21, 1769) that he had assented to the action of the 
Council in expelling Ulloa only under compulsion. He ac- 
cused the leaders of the people of purely selfish motives, 
and asserted that they had determined to burn the city 
rather than give it up to the Spaniards. Evidently the 
refusal of France to listen to their appeals had caused the 
mass of the people to hesitate, for we hear of no attempt 
being made to raise an army or to fortify and protect the 
city. In fact, with Aubry and Foucault in command of 
the military and scant fiscal resources of the province, 
nothing could be done against such power as Spain could 
hurl against them. Nevertheless, the leaders, with des- 
perate courage, held out against the ever-increasing 
danger for the rights which they had dared to assert. 
Even now they entertained the idea of establishing a 
government of their own led by officers of their choice. 
The idea was out, but it was yet too new, too startling, 
too full of perils and responsibilities to find immediate 



118 LOUISIANA 

support or many adherents except among the most de- 
termined. Thus the lack of unity within the colony 
prevented any decided action, and in the midst of the 
doubt and anxiety came the news from the Balize that a 
Spanish fleet of twenty-four vessels had arrived there. 

Immediately following the messenger came Don Eran- 
cisco Bouligny, with a letter from O'Eeilly to Aubry. 
A great and anxious crowd was assembled when Bouligny 
landed at the levee. The Spanish officers, Loyola, Na- 
varro, and Gayarre, left behind by Ulloa, met him and 
led him to Aubry, who received him with the greatest 
courtesy. After O'Reilly's letter had been translated by 
Bouligny, Aubry said that he was ready to surrender the 
province and offer the assistance of his troops in case 
the populace showed signs of opposition. The next day 
Aubry called the people together and informed them 
publicly of his decision. The people remained silent and 
gloomy. Lafreniere and Marquis then advanced from the 
crowd and demanded a special audience. After consulta- 
tion with Aubry, the representatives of the people agreed 
to surrender, and told Bouligny that they would go down 
the river to meet O'E-eilly and assure him of their inten- 
tion to offer no further resistance. Next day they went 
with Bouligny to O'Eeilly, who received them courte- 
ously on board his vessel. Lafreniere, acting as spokes- 
man, assured the Spaniard that as the people were now 
convinced that France was determined to abandon them, 
it was no longer possible for them to oppose this decision 
and they were now ready to submit. He asserted boldly 
that only the harshness and strange conduct of Ulloa 
had at first forced them to take determined action, and 
assured O'Reilly that legal authority would be more effec- 
tive in conquering the people than force of arms. To 
these statements O'Beilly replied that he would say 
nothing definite until a full investigation on the spot had 
put him in possession of all the facts, but he assured La- 
freniere that his intentions were the kindest and that he 



THE REVOLUTION OF '6S 119 

meant to do harm to no one. He said that he was pleased 
that the people now thought more reasonably and had 
recovered from the vertigo that had made them fancy 
that they could resist one of the most powerful nations 
of Europe, or that the king of France would give ear " to 
the cries of a rebellious people." At these words Milhet 
interrupted him, and explained that the people had never 
been in rebellion, since they had never formally been 
declared subjects of Spain or accepted Spanish rule. 
O'Reilly then assured him kindly that all his reasons 
would be heard in good time, and hoped that all matters 
would then be satisfactorily settled. He kept the three 
Louisianians to dine with him, treated them with marked 
courtesy, and sent them back to the city reassured that 
the people need fear no acts of vengeance. 

On August 18, 1769, O'Reilly's vessels anchored op- 
posite the Place d'Armes. Aubry had drawn up his 
French troops along one of the sides facing the river. 
The whole square w^as left vacant. The people, still 
anxious, silent, and overawed by the warlike appearance 
of the large armament, crowded the streets about the 
square. At midday O'Eeilly, with three thousand picked 
men fully armed, left the vessels and drew up his soldiery 
along the three sides of the square left vacant by Aubry. 
Aubry, advancing to the centre of the square, was met 
by O'Reilly, who presented his papers and commissions 
of authority. These were read aloud, and in the midst of 
profound silence Aubry absolved the people from their 
allegiance to France and declared them subjects of Spain. 
Salutes were fired, the Spanish flag run up in place of the 
French, and the officers then entered the parish church, 
where a Te Deum was sung. An imposing parade of 
O'Reilly's splendidly armed soldiers completed the cere- 
monies, and gave the whole city an opportunity to esti- 
mate the power which backed their new rulers. 

O'Reilly lost no time in demanding of Aubry a full 
account of all the events preceding and following Ulloa's 



120 LOUISIANA 

expulsion, together with the names of the chief movers 
and all documents and papers relating to the matter. 
Anbry, eager to gain the favor of the new powder, far ex- 
ceeded the necessities of the case in the elaborate written 
report which he speedily put into O'Eeilly's hands. He 
had continually posed as the friend of the people, and 
had maintained that his moderation and conservatism had 
saved them from a revolt which would have led them 
to destruction. It was now in his power to represent the 
affair in its most favorable light to O'Eeilly, and perhaps 
secure a pardon for the leaders of the discontented. In- 
stead of this his disgraceful eagerness to prove his loyalty 
to the party in power and win the Spaniard's favor led 
him to make the action of Lafreniere and his associates 
as heinous as the facts would permit. In his report, he 
accuses them of seditious and rebellious attempts to pre- 
judice the people against the authorized government from 
motives of personal and selfish ambition, and name by 
name called attention to the acts of the principals. So 
secretly did O'Keilly gather his information and so care- 
fully did he conceal his vindictive purpose that when, on 
the 21st of Augustj he invited the principal persons of 
the colony to a reception at his government house and 
named among his guests the leaders of the revolution, no 
one suspected, in the act anything but a magnanimous 
sign of forgiveness and an overture of friendship. Tor 
this reason all of the marked men, except Villere, who 
was absent from the town, presented themselves at the 
general's reception. When all those for whom the gath- 
ering had been chiefly called had arrived and after the 
Spaniard's polished courtesies and welcome had com- 
pletely thrown them off their guard, O'Reilly found a 
pretext to call aside those wdiom Aubry had named in 
his report, and invited them with him into an inner room. 
Scarcely had they entered when the doors w^ere closed 
and barred upon them, and a file of armed soldiers sur- 
rounded them and hurried them away to safe places of 



THE REVOLUTION OF '68 121 

imprisonment. It will be remembered that Yillere, who 
had been named by Aubry as one of the most dangerous 
of the conspirators, was not present at the fatal reception. 
He was destined, however, to a more sudden doom, and 
his tragic death gave a yet more sinister aspect to the new 
turn of affairs. In his case the accounts are conflicting. 
The Spanish oificial report supplements the account of 
his arrest by the simple statement that he " died raving 
mad on the day of his arrest." Bossu, who had just re- 
turned to the colony at this time, states that Villere, 
being at his plantation below the city when the Spaniards 
arrived, had determined to escape to the English colo- 
nies, but had been induced to return by a letter from 
Aubry, who assured him that his flight would increase 
the suspicion of guilt against those who remained. He 
had therefore returned, but had been met at the gates 
of the town by a Spanish officer, with a file of soldiers, 
and placed under arrest. In his anger and surprise at this 
action, Villere was reported to have struck the officer 
and fallen beneath the bayonets of the enraged soldiers. 
Judge Martin gives yet another account. According to 
this, Yiller^ had returned to the city, fearing that his 
absence would be taken as a confession of guilt, that he 
had been immediately arrested and confined on board a 
Spanish vessel in the river. His wife had anxiously fol- 
lowed him to town and, learning that he was on board 
the vessel, had rowed out in a canoe and begged the 
guard to allow her to see him. Her prayers were refused, 
but Villere in the cabin heard and recognized her voice 
and attempted to go on deck, though ordered back by the 
guard. There was a struggle, and Villere was shot to 
death. Judge Martin also states that the victim's bloody 
shirt was thrown to the wife as a concise answer to her 
frantic entreaties. This is the story accepted by popular 
tradition. 

Not satisfied with what he had already done, Aubry 
now busied himself to fasten guilt upon Intendant Fou- 



122 LOUISIANA 

cault, arrested him, and delivered him to O'Reilly, with 
the statement that his criminal conduct had brought the 
colony to the verge of ruin and had done much to ani- 
mate the feelings of the people against the Spanish. 
Now, after assisting O'Reilly in getting the leaders of 
the people into his power, after being present at their 
arrest, and after having accused them secretly and treach- 
erously, Aubry began to applaud the " generosity and 
goodness " of the Spaniard in selecting so few victims 
when ^' there were many others who deserved the same 
fate." Brand, the ofEcial printer who had issued the 
memorial of the people during the preceding October, 
was also arrested, but was released when he showed in 
justification the signed order of Intendant Fou cault and 
pleaded that he had merely followed the orders of his 
superior. It thus appeared that Foucault was guilty both 
against the Spaniards and against the people. He was 
examined, but in view of his official position under the 
French he was shipped to France and imprisoned in the 
Bastile by his own government, though afterwards 
released. 

From all testimony extant, it is plain that the guilt 
of the remaining victims had been predetermined by 
O'Reilly, with Aubry' s able assistance, and that they 
were foredoomed as examples. The forms of examina- 
tion and trial were nevertheless gone through. A Span- 
ish advocate, Don Felix del Rey, drew up an act of ac- 
cusation, naming as chiefs of the conspiracy, Nicolas 
Chauvin de Lafreniere, Jean Baptiste Noyan, Balthazar 
Masan, Pierre Marquis, Joseph Villere, Pierre Caresse, 
Pierre Hardy de Boisblanc, Joseph Petit, Jean and Jo- 
seph Milhet, Pierre Poupet, Julien Jerome Doucet, Fou- 
cault, and young Bienville, though the two last-named, 
being in the official service of France, were not tried 
with the rest. All the others were accused of lese-ma- 
jeste, under Spanish law, for which the penalty was 
death and confiscation of property. Anticipating that 



THE REVOLUTION OF '68 123 

the accused would claim as their sole defense that they 
were not under the jurisdiction of Spain at the time of 
the expulsion of Ulloa, the act of accusation lays special 
stress upon the statement that the province had been 
fully and completely surrendered to UUoa by Aubry by 
written act, in a letter which had been secretly given 
by Aubry to Ulloa at the Balize, unknown to the inhab- 
itants. Upon this secret act of Aubry, the Spaniards 
based their claim to consider the action of the people a 
rebellion against the king of Spain. The examination 
of the prisoners was made separately and in secret in the 
cells wherein they were confined, only Spanish officials 
being present. In defense, the accused asserted, as had 
been expected, that the Spanish courts had no jurisdic- 
tion over their case, '' since, admitting the truth of the 
facts brought against us, these facts took place while the 
white flag yet floated over our heads and while the French 
laws yet governed the colony. Furthermore, Ulloa pre- 
tended that he had not sufficient force to take possession, 
and the government remained in the hands of Aubry for 
the king of France, nor could we be faithful to two 
sovereigns at once, and the king of Spain could not have 
counted upon our allegiance before receiving our oaths 
and before being in a position to cover us with his pro- 
tection." Such objections, however, were disregarded, 
for O'Reilly had determined to make a harsh example 
for all time of the leaders of the revolution and display 
to its fullest the power of Spain to crush discontent and 
hold even an unwilling colony in absolute control. We 
have seen that his written instructions before leaving 
Spain had ordered him to establish a firm government 
and punish the leaders of the people, but not to inflict 
the death penalty. Whether these instructions had been 
drawn up to show to the French government, and whether 
O'Eeilly had received verbal orders which allowed him 
more severity, is impossible to say ; nevertheless he re- 
solved to inflict the extreme penalty upon those of his 



124 LOUISIANA 

victims whom he had selected as the most prominent, 
men of the best and most honored blood in the colony. 

On October 24, 1769, he passed his sentence : '' The 
Sieurs Nicolas Chaiivin de Lafreniere, Jean Baptiste 
Noyan, Pierre Caresse, Pierre Marquis, and Joseph Mil- 
het, as leaders of said conspiracy ... (as is demanded 
by the infamy which they have incurred ipso jure by 
their participation in so horrible a crime), to be led to 
their punishment wdth cords about their necks upon 
asses, to be hanged until dead, and to remain hanging 
imtil I otherwise order." As Villere was indeed beyond 
O'Reilly's jurisdiction, the general had to content himself 
with condemning the memory of the dead to infamy. 
Petit was sentenced to imprisonment for life ; Masan and 
Doucet for ten years ; Boisblanc, Jean Milhet, and Pou- 
pet for six years. The properties of all were confiscated, 
and all the papers, publications, and memorials of the 
revolution were ordered to be collected and publicly 
burned by the hangman. Necessity, however, somewhat 
modified the execution of the sentence upon Lafreniere 
and his fellows. It was discovered that the colony had 
no official executioner, and that no one considered him- 
self sufficiently expert in the art of hanging to under- 
take O'Reilly's brutal work. He was therefore prevailed 
upon, at the suggestion of Don Felix del Rey, to allow 
the condemned to be shot. 

On the 25th of October, 1769, at three o'clock in the 
afternoon, Lafreniere, Milhet, Marquis, Noyan, and 
Caresse were bound and led from prison under strong 
guard into the yard of the barracks. There were no wit- 
nesses save the Spanish officers and soldiers drawn up 
grimly in a hollow square, the interpreters, and O'Reilly's 
clerk, Rodriguez, whose account is the only one we have. 
Outside, in the Place d'Armes, a large body of troops 
was drawn up in readiness to meet any demonstration 
from the people, and armed squads patrolled the de- 
serted, echoing streets. But the little town lay silent 



TEE REVOLUTION OF '68 125 

and gloomy behind closed doors, and seemed to wait in 
the stillness of death or despair for the sound of the 
fatal shots. Within the barracks yard, the five con- 
demned men were drawn up before the firing line, and 
the sentence of death was read to them in Spanish and 
French. Tradition has it that Lafreniere himself gave 
the command to fire, and that all met death with the 
same spirit of courage with which they had asserted their 
loyalty to unworthy France and braved for her sake the 
anger of Spain. With this volley of Spanish bullets 
ended forever the last valid assertion of France to the 
vast country which so many of her heroes had given 
their lives to win for her and to retain even in spite of 
her own blinded counsels.^ 

Louisiana now lay crushed and hopeless in the power 
of O'Reilly. Perhaps he had been led to believe by 
Aubry's insinuations that only by such a brutal show of 
power could he beat the people at once into submission, 
but the needless cruelty of this unmerited vengeance has 
fixed in the memory of Louisiana the epithet " Bloody '' 
upon the name of the otherwise kindly O'Reilly. 

But the little tragedy did not end without an epilogue, 
in which many a bitter heart in Louisiana saw the retri- 
butive significance of poetic justice. Aubry had played 
a sinister part in the whole affair. Upon him rested 
the chief blame for the tragedy that had ended in the 
barracks yard. Upon him, more than upon any other, 
was laid the responsibility for the death of those whom 
Louisiana still calls her first martyrs. When, therefore, 
O'Reilly had no further need of him, Aubry was eager 
to leave a place where his presence roused only hatred. 
Two documents ^ lately found show that Aubry hurried 
from the city much earlier than the date currently given. 

1 Petit, Masan, the second Milhet, Doucet, Boisblanc, and Poupet 
were sent to Morro Castle in Havana, but were released after a year's 
imprisonment. 

2 Publications of Louisiana Historical Societ}'-, vol. ii, part i. 



126 LOUISIANA 

In fact he slipped away within a month after the death 
of the revolutionists, and from the present accounts it 
appears that he had his belongings put on board the 
ship, Pere de Famille, at New Orleans, but that he 
himself took the ship two and a half leagues below the 
city, rowing out to her as she dropped down the river, 
and that he brought with him a large purse of gold 
pieces, besides which he had on board two boxes and a 
bag full of silver. These facts — that he slipped away 
hastily and perhaps secretly, and that his chief luggage 
was gold and silver coin — impart a yet more sinister 
character to the acts of this hated man. Be the truth 
what it may, Aubry was not destined to reach France in 
safety or enjoy the reward of his submission, if indeed 
he had been paid by the Spaniards, as has always been 
suspected ; for, on attempting to enter the river of Bor- 
deaux (Gironde), the vessel was wrecked, and all on 
board perished save three sergeants, the surgeon, and 
the captain of the ship, w^hose sworn testimony of the 
facts just cited is the authority for the manner of Au- 
bry's exit from Louisiana and from the world. 



CHAPTER VI 

SPANISH RECONSTRUCTION LOUISIANA AND THE 

AMERICAN REVOLUTION 

O'Reilly's orders had been to obliterate what traces 
of rebellion he might find, establish a Spanish system 
of government, and then turn the direction of affairs 
over to Don Luis de Unzaga, who had come with him. 
O'Reilly was never governor of the province. He was 
commissioned as captain-general. He was too important 
a man to be isolated in a distant colony, but the fact 
that he was chosen for the work of reconstructing Lou- 
isiana showed that Spain was determined that the work 
should be done with such thoroughness and expedition 
that the colony might thereafter be safely left in the 
care of less strenuous officials. In this spirit O'Reilly 
had set to work, and now that he had completely crushed 
all opposition, the kindlier side of his nature appears in 
his labor to establish the government upon a just and 
firm basis. 

He first took a census of the city, finding 3187 in- 
habitants, white and colored. He then made a tour of 
the parishes, reassuring the people and making himself 
acquainted with their needs and conditions. To encour- 
age settlement and improvement of the country, he 
offered to grant a tract of land six arpents wide by forty 
deep to each family that would settle upon it and within 
three years build and keep in order before the property 
a levee and a road forty feet wide. 

Under French rule, the government had proceeded 
without much system. There had been no completely 



128 LOUISIANA 

codified set of laws save those relating to the negroes. 
Governor and Intendant had been left free to quarrel 
with each other over the spoils defrauded from the peo- 
ple and the poorly paid soldiers. O'Eeilly, therefore/ 
destroyed nothing valuable when he abolished the Supe- 
rior Council and swept away the whole French judicial 
fabric save only the Black Code. He then announced 
that he would establish in Louisiana the same form of 
government which prevailed throughout the Spanish- 
American colonies. In view of the fact that the people 
had no knowledge of these laws, he drew up a summary 
based upon the Recopilacion de los Indios, and had them 
published in French, at New Orleans, in November, 
1769. This compilation, known as the Code O'Eeilly, 
was intended to serve until such time as the spread of 
the Spanish language should enable the people to under- 
stand the complete body of the original system. In its 
main principles, Spanish law was not essentially dif- 
ferent from the French, both being traceable through 
the laws of the Visigoths to Roman law. In Louisiana 
itself, however, the change was great, from the mere fact 
that for the first time a system was thoroughly estab- 
lished, enforced by a sufficient number of officials, and 
left practically to govern itself. The duties of its officers 
were also distinctly defined. 

The chief executive officers were the Governor, charged 
with civil and military powers ; a Captain-General ; an 
Intendant, charged with the administration of revenues 
and all matters concerning trade, commerce, and foreign 
relations ; a Contador or Comptroller ; an Auditor of War, 
who was also government assessor and councilor at law 
to the Governor ; an Auditor of the Intendancy, who 
filled the same duties to the Intendant. There were 
secretaries to the Governor and Intendant, commissaries, 
surveyors, a captain of the port and of the coast guard, 
an official interpreter, three notaries, special revenue 
officers, and their employees. All of these officers whose 



SPANISH RECONSTRUCTION 129 

salaries amounted to more than three hundred dollars a 
year were named by the crown ; the rest were appointed 
by the governor. Also, in every parish or provincial 
department was stationed a commandant, who possessed 
military and civil authority, notarial powers, and the 
right of judging, without appeal, civil cases involving 
less than twenty dollars. In other cases he took written 
depositions and delivered them to the governor, who re- 
ferred them to the proper tribunals. 

In place of the Superior Council there was established 
a Cahildo, consisting of six perpetual Regidors, two ordi- 
nary Alcades, an Attorney-General Syndic, and a Clerk. 
Among the Regidors were distributed the chief legislative 
functions, to wit, the Alferez Real, or royal standard 
bearer, an official whose functions were solely honorary ; 
the principal Alcade Provincial, who had general su- 
pervision of legal matters in the parishes ; the Alguazil 
Mayor, or high sheriff ; a Depositary General ; and a 
receiver of fines. The two ordinary Alcades were elected 
by the Cahildo on the first day of each January. They 
could be reelected to a second term only after an interval 
of two years, unless by unanimous consent of the Ca- 
hildo. These officers were judges of civil and criminal 
cases within the city, except those privileged to be tried 
by ecclesiastical or military court. They heard minor 
cases every evening at their own homes after eight 
o'clock. In cases of greater importance they sat in court 
rooms specially appointed for them, and had the pro- 
ceedings recorded by a notary or a clerk. There was no 
appeal from their decisions in cases involving less than 
three hundred and thirty dollars. In appealed cases, the 
Cahildo appointed two Regidors to sit on the case with 
the Alcade who had rendered the decision. The entire 
Cahildo sat every Priday, and the governor presided. 

By proclamation of February 22, 1770, O'Reilly as- 
signed the city its first regular revenue, by laying an 
annual tax of forty dollars on each tavern or cafe ; a tax 



130 LOUISIANA 

of twenty dollars on each hotel, pension, or inn ; a tax 
of one dollar upon every barrel of spirituous liquor im- 
ported. The butchers voluntarily agreed to a suggested 
tax of three hundred and seventy dollars a year, and 
pledged themselves not to increase arbitrarily the price 
of meat therefor. A tax of six dollars on every boat of 
200 tons burden or over and of three dollars on every 
vessel of smaller bulk landing at or leaving the port was 
devoted to the support of the levees. The king also ceded 
at this time to the city of New Orleans the land on 
both sides of the Place d'Armes between Old Levee and 
Chartres streets, afterwards rented in perpetuity to Don 
Andres Almonaster. 

The Code Noir ( Black Code ) granted by Louis XIV 
and established in Louisiana under Louis XV was ordered 
to be continued in force and new copies were published. 

A regiment of Louisiana was organized and many 
French enrolled in it. 

For the present no change was made in the ecclesiastical 
organization. Pere Dagobert remained Superior of the 
Capuchins and still under authority of the Bishop of 
Quebec. A small pension was granted to the two Ursu- 
line nuns who still performed hospital work.. 

Unhappily the exclusive foreign policy of Spain was 
laid upon the trade of the colony, and strict super- 
vision was exercised over strangers. No person was 
harbored in the city or passed by the commanders of the 
parishes unless he could show an authorized passport. 
The inhabitants were forbidden to buy goods of the 
English, whose vessels passed constantly on the way to 
Manchac, Baton Eouge, or Natchez. They might sell to 
these traders, but only on condition that they received 
money and not merchandise in return. The fine for break- 
ing this law was one hundred dollars, a third of which 
was to go to the informer. These restrictions were of 
course onerous to the people, who had already come to 
depend upon the English vessels for most of their goods, 



SPANISH RECONSTRUCTION 131 

and would havd worked great hardship upon the colony, 
had not the Spanish officials seen the necessity of clos- 
ing their eyes against the contraband commerce which 
was soon again in full blast. In connection with the 
ultimate outcome of the resulting conditions, it is inter- 
esting to note that while O'Reilly was yet in the colony 
the scarcity of flour caused the price to run up to twenty 
dollars a barrel, as the convoys from Spain were late and 
commerce with the English newly, and therefore strictly 
interdicted. In this crisis there arrived a brig from Bal 
timore with a cargo of flour belonging to Oliver Pollock 
a name destined to figure later in other enterprises 
Pollock offered the cargo to O'Reilly at his own price 
O'Reilly refused to take full advantage of this gener 
ous offer, but bought the cargo at fifteen dollars a barrel 
reported Pollock's courtesy to the king, and assured the 
merchant that he Avould henceforth have free entry to 
the port with any merchandise. 

The first session of the Cabildo was opened by O'Reilly, 
who, however, at once yielded his place to Don Luis de 
Unzaga y Aurenzaga, and duly installed him as governor 
of Louisiana. At O'Reilly's departure from the colony, 
Don Antonio Buccarelly succeeded him as captain-gen- 
eral. 

The true intention of the Spanish government and its 
evident desire to conciliate the people were now evident. 
O'Reilly had appointed Frenchmen almost exclusively to 
the commands of the posts. French names appear at once 
throughout the service, and one soon hears of marriages 
between the Spanish and the daughters of the French 
Creoles. Delachaise and St. Denis became Alcades ; Un- 
zaga himself married a Maxent ; a Gayarre married a De 
Grandpre ; Bouligny, Piernas, and other prominent Span- 
iards did the same. Accustomed as they had been to the 
squabbles and negligence of many of their former officers 
and the neglect shown them by the government of France, 
the inhabitants were not slow to appreciate the care and 



132 LOUISIANA 

expense with which Spain sought to establish a just sys- 
tem of laws and a competent judicial machinery. In the 
first place Spain sent always officials of approved merit, 
good birth, and high character. The conduct of the gov- 
ernor was always subject to the inquiry of the Cahildo. 
Every provision was made to prevent unjust imprisonment 
and delays in bringing cases to prompt trial. The two 
ordinary Alcades, accompanied by the High Sheriff and 
the Clerk of the Cabildo, were required (Code O'Reilly, 
Articles 13 and 15) to visit the prison every Friday, ex- 
amine all prisoners detained there, the causes of their de- 
tention, and the length of time for which they had been 
confined. They were ordered to release the poor detained 
for their expenses or for small debts, and the jailer was 
forbidden to exact any fee from such persons, under pen- 
alty of fine. Thrice during the year, on the eves of Christ- 
mas, Easter, and Whitsunday, the governor and the en- 
tire Cahildo were required to make a general inspection 
of prisons and release persons arrested for the most petty 
criminal cases or for small debts, when such debtors 
should be proven insolvent. The Attorney-General Syn- 
dic was not the state prosecuting attorney, as might be 
imagined from his title, but was an officer w^hose special 
duty was to represent the people, to suggest to the Ca- 
hildo such laws as he deemed needful for their welfare, 
and to see that they were properly enforced. The section 
of the code assigning the duties of the jailer is especially 
humane and considerate of the poor, and shines by com- 
parison with the similar regulations of other states and 
countries of the day. He was required to give bond, to 
be approved by the governor and the Cahildo ; he had to 
keep careful records of every case of imprisonment, with 
dates of arrest and trial and the names of the judges by 
whose order the writs of arrest were issued. He was ex- 
pressly instructed to keep the prison clean and orderly, 
to maintain an attitude of kindness to the prisoners, and 
was forbidden to take fees from the poor, or indeed to 



SPANISH RECONSTRUCTION 133 

receive gratuities in any shape. In serious criminal cases, 
no person could be convicted except by the sworn testi- 
mony of at least two witnesses " of irreproachable char- 
acter/' and every provision was made for the speedy ter- 
mination of law suits. Ecclesiastical tyranny was never 
fastened upon Louisiana, as the people had feared. The 
intense devotion of the Spanish to the church appears 
only in the severity of the penalties inflicted for blas- 
phemy : " He who shall revile our Saviour or his Mother, 
the Holy Virgin Mary, shall have his tongue cut out, and 
half his property shall be confiscated." One of the laws 
relating to libel or slander is especially curious, yet typi- 
cal of the spirit of the code. Article 4 of Section Y on 
punishments decrees that any plebeian convicted of using 
abusive or slanderous language to the harm of any one 
shall be condemned to pay a fine of 1200 maravedis,! but 
that a nobleman convicted of the same offense shall pay 
2000 maravedis, in view of the greater obligations which 
noble birth and breeding lay upon a man to observe the 
laws of courtesy and dignity. For the first time, also, 
real provision was made in the colonial law to prevent 
commanders of posts from substituting inferior supplies 
for those sent out by the government to the soldiers and 
pocketing the difference in price. Attempt was also made 
to regulate the Indian trade and prevent injustice being 
done to the natives. These laws were in force as far north 
as the Illinois and the little fort of St. Louis on the 
Missouri, then a post containing thirty-three free inhab- 
itants and eighteen slaves. St. Louis was made the seat 
of government for Upper Louisiana, and the French 
commandant, St. Ange, was retained for the present as 
lieutenant-governor, though he was soon succeeded by 
Piernas. 

As if to complete the reconciliation and to assure the 
people of its kindly intentions, the Spanish government 

1 The maravedi was the smallest Spanish coin (copper) and was 
worth about | of a U. S. cent or a little more than an English farthing. 



134 LOUISIANA 

had appointed as first governor a man of mild and gentle 
temper, agreeable manners, and just and equitable nature. 
Under Unzaga, the colony soon lost its dread of Spanish 
rule and enjoyed the security of the good government 
which he administered with strict impartiality, except, 
perhaps, when he erred upon the side of kindness. 
When, for example, in 1772, Spanish Capuchins came 
to Louisiana, and the prying, envious Padre Cirilo at- 
tempted to bring about the dismissal of Father Dagobert, 
the Superior of the French Capuchins, Unzaga interfered 
on the side of the people and the French priests, even at 
the risk of incurring the powerful displeasure of his own 
church, so that the jovial Dagobert, of whom so many 
tales are told, remained undisturbed in his own devices, 
and the sniffing ascetic took himself off to an environ- 
ment where his sanctity found more cordial response 
than in the gay little capital of Louisiana. 

Nevertheless, with all its care to establish a firm hold 
upon the colony and to engraft Spanish civilization upon 
the French stock, the domination of Spain in the Missis- 
sippi Valley was but an episode in its history. France 
had long felt her hold upon the interior of the colony 
weakening before the steady westward advance of the 
English colonies, and at her final defeat had sought to 
save distant Louisiana from her enemy by intrusting it 
to her ally, Spain. But the cession of all the territory 
east of the Mississippi to England had brought that 
hostile power to the very gates of the province and 
had given it a hold upon the great river. The grasp of 
Spain upon Louisiana was firmer than that of France had 
been, but was not strong enough to withstand so ele- 
mental a force as that which drove the growing English 
colonies ever westward and made the possession of the 
Mississippi a necessity to them. Louisiana, so far as Spain 
was concerned, was but a colony, one out of many, and 
not the most important, distant as it was and detached 
from her most vital interests. Perhaps its chief recom- 



SPANISH RECONSTRUCTION 135 

mendation to the Spanish was that it might serve as an 
obstacle between the aggressive Saxon and the rich mines 
of Mexico. Spain made little or no attempt to people 
with her own race the wild spaces of that vast frontier 
which her scattered military posts were not strong enough 
even to watch. To the English colonist, on the other 
hand, the western forest had become home. Wherever 
the pioneer and the settler coming over the mountain- 
passes from the Atlantic settlements planted a trading- 
post or even a solitary cabin one mile farther towards the 
west, there the boundaries of the new country were ex- 
tended and established, and behind every cabin door was 
a trusty rifle to maintain all claims. Nor was the time 
far distant when this hardy race would transform the 
wilderness between the mountains and the great river 
into populous States, and when the impulse to growth 
and the new need of the young country to expand and 
gather strength were to make the presence of the Spaniard 
on the Mississippi a menace to the welfare and a hin- 
drance to the very nationality of the lusty Federation. 
Against such an elemental force, the race-destiny which 
had driven the conquering Saxon from narrow fiats of 
Schleswig over half the world, the mere military hold 
of so distant a country as Spain upon an alien province 
could offer no permanent resistance. 

As it happened, the provincial officials of Louisiana 
themselves provided the wedge by which the persistent 
energy of their rivals finally forced a way. O'Eeilly 
had indeed suggested that the prosperity of the colony 
would be greater under liberal laws of commerce and 
trade, but the policy of Spain was against allowing its 
colonies such independence, and the laws set for Louisi- 
ana were especially rigid. In addition to the restrictions 
already mentioned in connection with O'Reilly's code, 
the royal schedule published by Ulloa in 1766 was 
enforced. TThis order confined the export trade to six 
. Spanish ports, — Seville, Alicante, Carthagena, Malaga, 



136 LOUISIANA 

\ Barcelona, and Comna. Trade was to be carried on in 
Spanish-built vessels, commanded and owned by subjects 
of Spain. There was no duty charged on exports to 
Louisiana from the six named ports, nor any duty on 
goods from these ports entering New Orleans ,* but the 
exporting of goods or specie from Louisiana to them was 
subject to a duty of four per cent. The only foreign 
trade allowed was the annual entrance of two ships from 
France. These restrictions had been perhaps the chief 
cause of Ulloa's expulsion, and the colonists again feared 
financial ruin. They could not always obtain the goods 
they needed from the six authorized ports, nor could they 
dispose of their own wares there to advantage. Louisi- 
ana indigo was in no demand in Spain, for a better and 
cheaper grade was received from other Spanish colonies 
similarly restricted, especially Guatemala and Caraccas. 
Purs and peltries had small sale in southern Europe, 
though in France or England they would have found a 
ready market. Timber could not be transported so far 
save at great cost. There was some small profit in ex- 
porting tobacco, but this trade also was forced into com- 
petition with the supply from the Spanish West Indies. 
Judge Martin estimates that the indigo trade of Louisi- 
ana at this time was worth about $180,000 a year, the 
trade in furs about $200,000, and that in lumber about 
$100,000. Fortunately for the colony and unfortunately 
for Spain, there was a ready market for such wares 
much closer at hand than the six legitimate ports of the 
Peninsula. It has already been said that, as soon as the 
English garrisons had taken possession of the territory 
ceded by France to England east of the Mississippi, 
English traders swarmed over the country and English 
Vessels plied the river. Trading-posts, forts, and ware- 
houses had been established at Natchez, Baton Pouge, 
and Manchac, and vessels from Baltimore, Philadelphia, 
New York, Boston, and England brought constant car- 
goes and took away again in clandestine trade all the 



SPANISH RECONSTRUCTION 137 

produce that should have gone to the six legally desig- 
nated ports. A few goods were sold to the two French 
vessels that came once a year, and about $15,000 an- 
nually went to Havana for sugar-boxes, but the rest of 
the trade and the specie was snapped up by the English 
and Americans. This contraband trade was finally carried 
on with only a faint pretense of secrecy. Large boats 
fitted up as warehouses and stores, with shelves and 
counters, floated up and down the river, stopping at all 
important plantations. Just above New Orleans, where 
these shops tied up, the traders held a perpetual fair ; the 
English and Americans soon controlled the slave trade 
also. 

Unzaga was wise enough to see that the colony would 
have been ruined but for this trade, and discreetly closed 
his eyes to the brazen infraction of law. Trade hummed 
busily, and prosperity flowed into the contented pro- 
vince. Many of the new-comers, too, purchased lands and 
settled in the Spanish territory with their families and 
slaves, and the foreign merchants established ofiices and 
agents in New Orleans. 

Unzaga' s administration was thus peaceful and un- 
eventful. In 1776 he was appointed Captain-General of 
Caraccas, and left the colony, deeply regretted and loved 
by the people, whom he had completely won by his wise 
and just administration of the laws and by his constant 
consideration for their welfare. No governor was im- 
mediately appointed in his place, and the office was 
temporarily intrusted to Bernardo de Galvez, the young 
colonel of the Louisiana regiment. Galvez was at this 
time but twenty-one years of age, but his brilliant abil- 
ity, backed by determination and ambition, and fired 
with enthusiasm and impetuous activity, had already 
given him something of the admiration and confidence 
of the people, which afterwards aided him to play so 
honorable a part in the struggle which Spain was soon 
to share. Moreover, his high rank gave him influence, 



138 LOUISIANA 

power, and importance, even before he had won them by 
the force of his own personality ; for his uncle, as presi- 
dent of the Council of the Indies, was perhaps the 
highest official in Spain after the king himself, and his 
father viceroy of Mexico. Galvez assumed the duties 
of governor in January, 1777, and it was fortunate for 
Spain that just such a man as this should represent her 
at this time, for the affairs of the English colonies of 
North America had now reached such a crisis that Spain 
and her provinces of Louisiana and Florida could not 
avoid being drawn into it. When the Thirteen Colonies 
on the Atlantic coast had declared their independence of 
England, the sympathy of Erance was with them, and her 
aid was prompt and at least partly inspired by this feel- 
ing. The attitude of Spain towards the revolutionists 
was different from that of the people of Erance, but was 
strongly influenced in their favor both by her alliance 
with Erench interests and by her hereditary hatred of 
England and desire to aid in weakening that power. Her 
part in the war was undertaken solely for her own gain, 
chiefly in the hope of recovering Gibraltar from Eng- 
land, and her assistance would have been of little di- 
rect benefit to the cause of the struggling States had 
it not been for the part which her colony of Louisiana 
played in the great contest. The honest sympathy of the 
people of Louisiana was plainly and strongly with the 
revolted colonies. Not only had the contraband trade 
brought them into friendly and close relations, but the 
people of Louisiana had long begun, though only half 
consciously, to feel that they themselves were Americans, 
and that the interests of the whole continent were des- 
tined to detach themselves from those of Europe and to 
depend upon some ultimate unity. Their own attempt 
at self-assertion, though premature and abortive, had not 
been without its influence upon the thoughts and temper 
of the people. The eager, generous blood of Erance had 
given the Creoles of Louisiana hearts that could respond 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 139 

to the heroic bravery of the new country, and their iso- 
lation had given them also a character in which the new 
life in the wilderness had bred a similar spirit of inde- 
pendence and love of liberty. As has been said, there 
were in New Orleans a considerable number of merchants 
from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston, 
and these men, notably that same Oliver Pollock to 
whom O'E/cilly had granted special privileges, busied 
themselves in sending supplies and ammunition from New 
Orleans to Pennsylvania. In this business, the people 
of the colony were prompted to aid by sympathy for the 
revolutionists, and the officials were encouraged by the 
attitude of Spain to offer from the outset a tacit assist- 
ance and encouragement. This and the fact that in 1776 
trade between Louisiana and the French West Indies 
had been allowed, took away the trade from English ves- 
sels and gave it all to those of France and the Atlantic 
States. The presence of two French commissioners 
of commerce — Villars and D' Aunoy — in New Orleans 
brought the people into yet closer sympathy with the 
devolution. Galvez exceeded his authority by even 
seizing eleven loaded English vessels engaged in the con- 
traband trade on the Mississippi.-^ 

The revolutionists, too, were not ignorant of the im- 
portance which Louisiana might have in the contest. 
During this year Captain Willing of the Continental 
Army visited the English settlements in an unsuccess- 
ful attempt to induce them to revolt, and boats were sent 
down regularly from Fort Pitt by river for the supplies 
and munitions of war which Pollock and his associates 
were industriously concentrating in New Orleans. In a 
correspondence between Galvez and Col. George Morgan, 
stationed at Fort Pitt, occurs the first suggestion of an 
attack upon the British forts in the Floridas, and the 
American asked the assistance of the Spaniards in form- 
ing an army in Louisiana for that purpose. Galvez, how- 

1 See report of Villars and D' Aunoy, 26 April, 1777. 



140 LOUISIANA 

ever, had no desire that an American army should obtain 
a footing within his territory, nor did he intend that 
any other country than Spain should gain possession of 
the Floridas. He at once informed the Court of Madrid 
of all these things, and, while waiting for instructions, 
endeavored to put New Orleans in a state of defense. 
In addition to this, he built four gunboats for use on 
the river, obtained plans of Mobile and Pensacola, and 
kept agents among the States of the new federation so as 
to have early notice of any move which that government 
might make. His ardor to attack was held in check for 
some time longer by the Court, and he was forbidden to 
provoke actual war with the English. He had, there- 
fore, to content himself with assisting the Americans 
with money, as he did to the extent of $70,000, to main- 
tain their hold on Kentucky. He foresaw none the less 
clearly that Louisiana would be drawn into the war, even 
though Spain hesitated to take part for diplomatic rea- 
sons. Already the Americans showed w^hat appeared to 
him a dangerous eagerness to enter the territory which 
he hoped to wrest from England for his own country. 
Captain Willing, with a small force recruited partly 
from New Orleans, plundered the plantations of British 
settlers on the eastern bank of the Mississippi and took 
Fort Manchac. Galvez looked upon this action with dis- 
favor, not only on account of its interference with his 
own ultimate plans, but also because Willing's operations 
had been directed against neutral and peaceable settlers, 
and because the people of Louisiana, in spite of their 
sympathy for the Americans, were incensed, as Martin 
says, at Willing's " cruel, wanton, and unprovoked con- 
duct towards a helpless community," more especially as 
he had been hospitably received the year before at some 
of the very houses that he now plundered and burned. 
The young governor must also have felt some uneasiness 
at the thought of a possible attempt of France to force 
a recession of Louisiana to herself, as was plainly indi- 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 141 

cated by the correspondence between the French com- 
missioners in New Orleans and the home government. 
He therefore endeavored to popularize the Spanish dom- 
ination in Louisiana by allowing yet more trade conces- 
sions than had been granted hitherto. In 1778, with the 
consent of the Court of Madrid, trade was permitted be- 
tween Louisiana and all ports of France, Spain, the colo- 
nies, and the States. The exporting of furs and peltries 
was relieved of all duties for a period of ten years. Im- 
migration into Louisiana was encouraged, and settlers 
were established in St. Bernard, on the Bayou Lafourche, 
and in west Baton Rouge, chiefly the five hundred 
Spanish subjects sent from the Canary Islands. AVith 
equal solicitude, the government forbade the inhabitants 
to receive certain French books, Robertson's '' History 
of America," and other literature deemed likely to in- 
fluence them against Spain, and certain Americans who 
were considered dangerous were sent out of the colony. 
Events in Europe now hastened on the progress of 
circumstances which Galvez wished to provide him with 
the opportunity of carrying out his ambitious plans. 
France had already acknowledged the independence of 
the United States and had become involved in war with 
England. Spain had ofl'ered to mediate between the dis- 
putants and had suggested a meeting of peace commis- 
sioners at Madrid. But England had refused to negotiate 
or to meet the delegates of the United States as repre- 
sentatives of an equal power. Spain, therefore, chiefly 
in the hope of regaining Gibraltar, had declared war 
against England in June, 1779. Her American colonies 
were authorized to make war, on the grounds that England 
had sought to indemnify herself for territorial losses by 
encroachments upon Spanish possessions and by inciting 
the Indians of the Floridas. Young Galvez had long 
been eager to take part in the war. His plans had been 
laid. He had studied the ground, and had found what 
he hoped to be an opportunity whereby Spain might re- 



142 LOUISIANA 

gain her lost territory and perhaps increase it. The im- 
portance of the plan which he had formed, the importance 
of the aid which he was to give to the cause of Amer- 
ican independence, and the influence which his conquest 
was to have upon the subsequent territorial expansion of 
the United States, require that the situation should be 
clearly stated and the working out of the plan detailed 
to some extent. 

By the treaty of 1763, England had come into posses- 
sion of all the territory east of the Mississippi except 
the town of New Orleans. George III had attempted 
to reserve as crown lands the vast tract bounded by Can- 
ada on the north, the Alleghany Mountains on the east, 
the parallel 31° of latitude on the south, and the Missis- 
sippi on the west. Emigration from the Atlantic colonies 
into this uninhabited district had been forbidden, but 
the prohibition had not been heeded. Settlements had 
been rapidly made within the areas of the present States 
of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi. At the be- 
ginning of the Revolution, the Virginia militia had made 
several raids along the Ohio^ seized the territory from 
the small British garrisons, and taken possession by a 
regiment under Col. George Kogers Clarke. By act 
of the General Assembly of Virginia, this district had 
been made a part of that State, under the name of the 
County of Illinois. North Carolina had similarly estab- 
lished a county west of the mountains. Here the Amer- 
ican arms had been successful. 

In the eastern part of the country, however, the year 
1780 opened with gloomy prospects for the American 
insurgents. In the south, their unsuccessful attack upon 
Savannah had been repulsed and Howe's campaign 
against the British of East Florida had been unsuccessful. 
At this time, Spain's declaration of war had suggested 
to the British government the necessity of attacking 
New Orleans and reducing the Spanish posts throughout 
the Mississippi Valley, thereby cutting off the Americans 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 143 

from support in this direction and completely flanking 
them, besides immeasurably strengthening their own posi- 
tion and redoubling their own resources. General Haldi- 
mand, then in Canada, had received orders to carry out 
this plan. The practical direction of the undertaking 
was intrusted to Lieutenant-Governor Sinclair at Michili- 
mackinac, in c<#operation with General Campbell, then sta- 
tioned at Pensacola. In February, 1780, he collected a 
large party of Sioux and ordered them to go down the 
river to Katchez. Other bands were to be sent " to 
amuse Colonel Clarke at the falls of the Ohio," and keep 
him from interfering with the capture of St. Louis, St. 
Genevieve, and the other Spanish posts along the river. 
General Campbell, meanwhile, was ordered to take a 
fleet and army up the Mississippi through the Passes, 
capture New Orleans, and efi'ect a junction at Natchez 
with Sinclair's force of Indians. This force was large and 
powerful, and Clarke would scarcely have been able to 
cope with it, had not an unexpected blow been struck at 
the very root of the enterprise. By intercepted letters, 
Galvez had learned the full details of the plan as early as 
Sinclair himself,^ and had already urged his council of 
war to consent to an immediate attack upon the British 
up the river. The council had not agreed with him in 
this plan, but after he had received intelligence of the ex- 
tensive preparations being made to capture New Orleans 
and join the forces descending the river, he again called 
a council of war and again submitted a plan of attack. 
Nevertheless, he could get the council to support him 
only in defensive measures. Thus, without the support 
of his council, and without authorization, he was forced 
to make his preparations under cover of defense and rely 
upon some turn of affairs to give him the opportunity 
which he sought. Spain had declared war in June, 1779, 
and from that time Galvez had pushed forward his plans 
with all possible haste. In August of the same year, 
1 Gayarr^, Spanish Domination, p. 122. 



144 LOUISIANA 

however, a hurricane suddenly swept the valley, destroy- 
ing the crops, killing cattle in the fields, blowing down 
houses, and wrecking even much of the shipping in port. 
All of the boats which Galvez had collected in the river 
and by which he had hoped to send his troops against 
Natchez were beaten to pieces and destroyed, except the 
frigate El Volante. This was indeed a heavy blow to 
the ardent hopes of the young commander and a most 
serious check to his plans, but with characteristic energy 
and impetuosity he set to work to repair at once the 
damage as well as might be, and kept his officers day 
and night at the work of scouring the country for boats 
of any description that might have escaped the wind. 

It will be remembered that Galvez had not yet been 
appointed governor of Louisiana, but had been serving 
merely ad interim.. His commission now reached him 
while his preparations were being hurried forward. He 
thought best to conceal the knowledge of his appoint- 
ment from the people until he could make an appeal for 
their support, which would not be likely to meet such a 
refusal as had been given him by his council. Mean- 
while he succeeded in raising three of his sunken gun- 
boats and mounting on them his little battery of ten 
small pieces and his stock of ammunition. He then called 
a public meeting of the people in the Place d'Armes, 
read them his appointment, and told them of the attack 
which the British contemplated. Seizing then the dra- 
matic moment, he told them that he could not accept 
the office in such a crisis unless he felt that he had their 
support and that they would follow him with all the 
trust and courage which he demanded. 

His enthusiasm, his popularity, and the direct influ- 
ence of his eager personality drew from the people a 
quick response, and amid their cheering and pledges of 
devotion he publicly took the oath of office. So great 
had been his activity in remaking his preparations that, 
by the 27th of August, 1779, he had gathered, ready for 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 145 

action, his little army of 170 trained soldiers, 330 volun- 
teers, 20 carabiniers, 60 of the New Orleans militia, 10 
American residents who had enlisted. Pollock among 
them, and 80 free blacks and mulattoes, — in all 670 
men. Still deeming it advisable to conceal his real pur- 
pose, he announced that he intended to post this force 
at points where he expected attack. Immediately after 
setting out he was joined by 160 Indians and 600 volun- 
teers from the parishes. He now had under his absolute 
control a force of something under 1500 men, but most 
of them were poorly equipped and unaccustomed to the 
hardships and exposure of a campaign through a marshy 
country, and the force was sadly diminished when, on 
September 6th, they reached Fort Manchac. Neverthe- 
less, when Galvez now exposed to them his full plan of 
anticipating the British and capturing their forts along the 
river, the little army responded with all the eagerness he 
could desire, captured without opposition the small gar- 
rison at Manchac, and pushed on at once against Baton 
Eouge. This place was ditched, walled, and defended by 
a force of four hundred regulars and one hundred militia- 
men, with thirteen pieces of heavy artillery. Galvez was 
joined here by a small reinforcement under De Grand- 
pre, which had just captured two small British outposts 
on Thompson's Creek and been engaged in cutting oif 
communication between Baton Eouge and Natchez. Gal- 
vez lost no time in throwing up trenches and planting 
batteries. This he managed to do to such advantage 
that, after a brisk bombardment, he had the place at his 
mercy. The surrender of this fort comprised also that of 
Fort Panmure at Natchez. In addition to these successes, 
the Spanish boats on Lake Pontchartrain and in the Mis- 
sissippi captured eight small British vessels. 

The campaign had been successfully brought to a 
close. Three forts had been taken by his quick action 
and skillful generalship, almost without loss of life. 
Five hundred and fifty-six regulars had been captured, 



146 LOUISIANA 

besides many militiamen and a considerable number of 
negroes. Yet Galvez found himself in a peculiar predic- 
ament. He had not sufficient men to guard his pris- 
oners, and was therefore compelled to dismiss many of 
them at once. Furthermore, after garrisoning the cap- 
tured forts he had but fifty regulars to defend New Or- 
leans and control the greatly superior numbers of pris- 
oners that roamed the streets on parole. Many strange 
Indians, too, swarmed into the town or camped in the 
vicinity, attracted by curiosity and the news of war. 
Galvez, no doubt, passed an anxious time until, in Octo- 
ber, reinforcements came from Havana. In reward for 
this enterprise, Galvez and his second in command, Gon- 
zales, were made brigadier-generals, the officers and men 
received high praise and honor, and Julien Poydras cel- 
ebrated the conquest in a small heroic poem printed and 
circulated by the government. 

The way was now prepared for the more important 
attack upon Mobile and Pensacola. Preparations were 
pushed forward with such good speed that on Pebruary 
5, 1780, Galvez left the Balize in a small fleet with two 
thousand men. In the Gulf he was struck by a squall. 
Some of the boats were disabled and stranded, and a con- 
siderable portion of his supplies and ammunition was 
damaged. After being exposed for some time to great 
danger, he finally succeeded in making land east of 
Mobile, but in such confusion that an attack then might 
have been fatal to him. He now found himself between 
the two forts, and at such disadvantage that he was com- 
pelled to take Mobile lest he should be attacked in the 
rear from Pensacola. 

After overcoming the brave resistance of the British, 
he took the place on the 14th of March, 1780. He ap- 
plied at once to the Captain-General at Havana for suffi- 
cient troops to attack Pensacola. Failing to get more 
than promises, he went himself to Havana, raised one 
force which was completely disabled by a storm, organ- 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 147 

ized a yet stronger armament, and laid siege to Pensacola 
in March, 1781. In spite of the unwillingness of his 
naval allies from Cuba, he succeeded by his own per- 
sonal bravery and skill in getting his vessels into the 
harbor, and invested General Campbell in Fort St. 
George so vigorously that the place was compelled to 
capitulate in May. 

In the mean time, while Galvez was so brilliantly 
striking at the root of the British scheme to capture the 
Mississippi Valley, the large force of Indians which 
Sinclair had ordered to descend the river and form a 
junction with Campbell after he had taken New Orleans, 
had set out to fulfill their part of the plan. On May, 
26, 1780, a party of fifteen hundred Indians and one 
hundred and forty English led by the Sioux chief Waba- 
sha reached the little post of St. Louis on the Missouri. 
This large force made a surprisingly feeble attack, killed 
a few settlers outside the walls, and then suddenly re- 
treated northward — their appearance and disappearance 
being equally puzzling not only to the people of St. Louis 
but to historians as well. All is plain, however, when 
we know that this invasion was but a part of the larger 
plan which the activity and ability of Galvez had already 
defeated. It is known, also, that Colonel Clarke had 
received information similar to that gained by Galvez, 
and it appears almost certain that, instead of allowing 
himself to be "amused near the falls of the Ohio," as 
Sinclair had intended, he was within easy call of St. 
Louis and was ready to cooperate with the Spaniards 
there. It was the sudden knowledge of Galvez's success 
in driving the British utterly out of the Mississippi Val- 
ley that had made the horde of savages post back so 
suddenly and inexplicably. 

In this manner was the grand scheme for the conquest 
of the Mississippi Valley brought to nothing, and thus 
the Illinois country, deserted by the feeble American 
Congress, had been saved from invasion, and the States 



148 LOUISIANA 

relieved from exposure all along their western and south- 
ern frontier. Some British settlers in the neighborhood 
of Natchez did indeed capture and hold that place while 
Galvez was occupied with Pensacola, but the news of 
his success had caused them to abandon the fort and 
leave the country with all possible haste. 

Such, in brief, was the highly important part which 
the Spaniards of Louisiana played in the American dev- 
olution. Galvez's successes made it possible for the new 
country to hold its territory intact from Canada to 
Florida, and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Had 
the English expedition succeeded, Great Britain could 
have set up a claim to this territory when the western 
boundary was fixed several years later at the declaration 
of peace. In view of their actual development, it is im- 
possible to predict what would have been the future 
of the United States without access to the Mississippi 
Valley and with two foreign nations upon their western 
border to confine them between the Alleghanies and the 
Atlantic. 



CHAPTER VII 

LOUISIANA IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY 

Returning from his victorious campaign, Galvez had 
to face other and more serious problems. The real des- 
tiny of the colony was soon to be unveiled. For the pre- 
sent, commerce, crippled by the war, was inactive, and the 
industrial life of the province was temporarily stagnant. 
For its encouragement he advocated absolute freedom 
of trade with all the world, encouragement of immigra- 
tion, and development of the extraordinary advantages 
of this favored land. But this was not done. The wise 
plans of the young governor were not those of Spain, nor 
was the destiny of Louisiana to be what he would have 
made it. A new power and a new set of conditions were 
now to be reckoned with. 

By the treaties signed at Paris in 1783 between Eng- 
land, Spain, and the United States, England yielded 
both the Eloridas to Spain and ceded to the United 
States that territory which George III had hoped to 
retain as crown lands, that is to say, the present States 
of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ala- 
bama, and Mississippi. The western boundary of the 
United States, therefore, touched that of the Spanish 
possessions down the course of the Mississippi to the 
31° latitude ; thence the southern boundary ran eastward 
along the 31° to the Apalachicola or Chattahoochee, 
thence down the middle of this stream to its junction 
with Elint River, thence to the head of St. Mary^s. 
River, and down the St. Mary to the Atlantic. Article 8 
of the definitive treaty granted to the subjects of Great 



150 LOUISIANA 

Britain and to citizens of the United States the right of 
free navigation of the Mississippi from source to mouth. 
Spain, however, had no intention that the treaty should 
go into effect to its full extent. In fact, from her en- 
trance into the war her attitude had heen far from con- 
ciliatory, and she showed small love and great distrust 
towards the new country. War had finally heen under- 
taken only after the United States had formally con- 
sented that Spain should have the Floridas. Moreover, 
while the war was yet in progress, Spain refused to grant 
free navigation of the Mississippi to the Americans, on 
the ground that they had no territory along its hanks, 
and France, through her Minister Gerard at Philadel- 
phia, had taken a leading part in these negotiations and 
had influenced Spain in her refusal. At this time Spain 
had the evident intention of wresting from England all 
the territory lying between the Mississippi and the Alle- 
ghanies and annexing it to her own possessions. Con- 
gress did not intend to tolerate such aggression, and 
instructed John Jay, their minister at Madrid, to push 
their claims to more favorable conditions. At the begin- 
ning of the year 1781, the outlook for the United States 
had been gloomy ; the British controlled most of the 
southern portion of the country ; the army was unpaid, 
starved, and discontented ; the French allies had not 
yet been of such assistance in actual battle as had been 
hoped ; and Spain had demonstrated her ability to seize 
and hold the territory at the south, to which she laid 
claim. Moreover, she had not yet formally recognized 
the independence of the United States. The minister at 
Madrid was therefore instructed by Congress to relin- 
quish the claims to the navigation of the Mississippi be- 
low the 31°, on condition that Spain acknowledge their 
independence. Spain was now doubly assured by Gal- 
vez's successes, and not only refused to make at that time 
any trade concessions to the United States, but declined 
to make any final decision or formal acknowledgment. 



IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY 151 

Jay had the spirit to warn the court, upon their refusal 
to negotiate, that the United States now withdrew their 
offer to relinquish their claims upon the navigation of 
the lower Mississippi, and would later push those claims 
when the opportunity arrived. He left Madrid in June, 
1782. The truth was that Spain did not wish to ac- 
knowledge the independence of the United States, as 
she hoped, by prolonging the war, to weaken England 
the more and finally recover Gibraltar. Indeed, though 
the Americans were in no position to see it, the war, so 
far as England and the United States w^ere concerned, 
was practically settled, and was now being conducted 
solely for the benefit of Spain. This was evident to 
France, but, on account of the Bourbon family alliance, 
she was inclined to assist Spain in putting off the final 
peace negotiations. Thus plunged at once and without 
experience into the entanglement of European diplomacy, 
the United States was in a condition of uncertainty, 
and caution was a necessity. When peace was finally 
arranged, however, and England ceded to the United 
States all the territory which Spain had hoped to get, 
except the Eloridas, Spain was temporarily forced to sub- 
mit to these conditions and to allow the navigation of 
the Mississippi, especially as the welfare of her own colo- 
nists in Louisiana and the recommendations of Galvez 
indicated this necessity. Nevertheless, Spain did not 
withdraw her troops from the east bank of the river, and 
closed her Mediterranean ports against vessels of the 
United States. England also excluded the Americans 
from trade with her West Indian possessions except in 
English vessels. John Jay was Secretary of Foreign 
Affairs when, in 1785, Spain sent Don Diego Gardoqui 
as her first minister to the government at Philadelphia. 
The merchants of the North Atlantic States were in dis- 
tress over the restrictions laid upon their commerce, and 
were clamorous for Congress to take measures for their 
relief. Jay was moved thereby to attempt to form an 



152 LOUISIANA 

agreement with Gardoqtii whereby the Atlantic mer- 
chants were to be appeased by trade concessions in the 
Mediterranean and elsewhere, the Southern States satis- 
fied by the abandoning of the Spanish posts east of the 
Mississippi in the territory ceded to the United States 
by England, and Spain bought off by the United States' 
relinquishing for twenty-five years all claim to navigate 
the Mississippi below the 31°. This would have been a 
sacrifice of the interests and welfare of the southwestern 
States to the merchants of the North Atlantic seaports, 
and great opposition was made when Jay's proposition 
became known ; and though Congress took no action 
upon the suggestion, the West got the impression that 
the national government was hostile to their distant 
interests, and that they would have to rely upon their 
own independent action for redress. Petty acts of hos- 
tility were committed along the frontier. The Spanish 
seized an American vessel near Natchez, and the Amer- 
icans retaliated by capturing Spanish merchandise at 
Vincennes. Congress was powerless to remedy matters ; 
the Union had not been formed and the States gave the 
so-called National Government no authority. The dis- 
content in the West was so evident that the Spanish 
now sought to take advantage of it to detach that ter- 
ritory from the yet unstable federation, and began the 
series of intrigues which finally resulted in the loss of 
their own possessions, but which kept the whole country 
in a state of dread and uncertainty, and finally ended only 
with the failure of the schemes of Aaron Burr. The 
first suggestion, definitely made, to detach the western 
territories from the American confederation seems to 
have come from McGillivray, a half-breed chief of the 
Talapouches, who proposed such a scheme early in 1784 
to the Spanish in Florida.-' Galvez had now been ap- 
pointed Captain General of Cuba, Louisiana, and the 
Floridas, and Estevan Mird was acting governor. He 
1 See Gaj'arrd, Spanish Domination, p. 158. 



IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY 153 

saw the advantage of at least retaining the alliance 
of this far-sighted chief, flattered him with a commis- 
sion as ''commissary-general" of the Talapouches, gave 
him a monthly salary to hold him in the service of 
Spain, and called a congress of natives at Pensacola to 
further cement the friendship. He also called a meeting 
at Mobile of delegates from the Chickasaws, Alabamas, 
and Choctaws, entertained them, gave them presents, 
and made alliances, confirming them in the possession of 
their lands. 

There was need for the future governor to seek to 
strengthen his position. Again the home government 
was interfering by stupid legislation with the prosperity 
of the colony. Trade had been suddenly interdicted, 
foreign vessels had again been forbidden to enter the 
port of New Orleans, and commercial life had ceased. 
Mird did what he could. By kindness, justice, and good 
nature, he won the esteem and devotion of the people ; 
he made whatever improvements in the city were within 
his means ; he established the first hospital for lepers 
and removed these terrible beggars from the streets ; and 
he prayed the Court of Madrid not to inflict the colony 
with worthless paper currency nor to discourage its pro- 
mising commerce by closing its port to profitable trade 
and shutting up the commercial houses that were fast 
making New Orleans a place of importance. But the 
Court of Madrid persisted in its stubborn policy of an- 
tagonizing the growing West, weakening its own colony, 
and diminishing its powers of resistance by restraining 
its growth. Miro was ordered to prevent the Americans 
from gaining a hold upon the country around Baton 
K/Ouge and Natchez. In April, 1786, he was instructed 
to form Natchez (and other places where it could be 
done) into parishes, and some Irish priests were sent 
out as a most generous concession to the English-speak- 
ing inhabitants. But the Saxon settlers and pioneers 
were not to be so easily disposed of as the Court of 



154 LOUISIANA 

Madrid seemed to fancy. From the time he received his 
commission as governor till he resigned, worn-out and, 
no doubt, discouraged, Mird vras continually striving to 
beat back the American advance guard, and to meet it 
and break it by intrigue. In 1785, Georgia had sent 
three commissioners into the Mississippi territory to 
claim it and demand its surrender, which Mird refused.^ 
Por the present, at least, he felt that he could defend 
the claims of the crown, while the Westerners besieged 
Philadelphia with appeals and complaints. Spain saw 
nothing to fear from the almost powerless Congress, but 
the Spaniards in Louisiana could see the danger which 
lay ahead. The Spaniards likewise inherited the former 
Prench troubles in keeping the Indians upon their side. 
The savages naturally liked the cheaper and better goods 
which the English traders had furnished them. In order 
to hold them in good humor, the Spaniards allowed 
William Panton of Pensacola and James Mather of Mo- 
bile to import goods from London for the Indian trade 
for a time, though the Court of Madrid saw fit to with- 
draw these concessions. On the Mississippi, Mird, at- 
tempting to offset the effects of his government's dull 
obstinacy in the only way that lay in his power, disre- 
garded to a great extent the laws made on the other side 
of the Atlantic, relaxed the restrictions on trade as much 
as he dared, allowed American families to settle within 
Spanish territory, and sought to permit the colony to 
gain some of the prosperity that could come to it only 
through open trade ; for he saw at once, as any clear- 
minded man on the spot could see, that Louisiana would 
go to ruin, were its trade limited to Spain alone. Under 
his lenient interpretation of the law, commerce again 
flowed into the colony, especially from Philadelphia by 
sea and from Kentucky by the river. Nevertheless, 
although the people of Louisiana were eager for trade 
with the United States, and although the governor 

1 MS. letter of Miro to the Commissioners, September, 1785. 



IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY 155 

allowed the law of Spain to be disregarded, now and 
then a small cargo of goods was seized by some official, 
and the temper of the Westerners thereby kept at boil- 
ing point. Mird made energetic attempts to turn this 
disconteait against the United States, and in his own 
favor. 

The present condition of the western territories was 
favorable for success of the intrigues which he began in 
1787. The western portion of the United States, the 
newly acquired wilderness lying west of the Alleghanies, 
was not within easy communication with the eastern; it 
had been settled under conditions which fostered a spirit 
of the most absolute independence, not to say lawless- 
ness; and, as the interests of its people seemed to be so 
opposed to those of the eastern portion of the federation, 
the people felt a distrust of the Congress to which they 
had appealed in vain for aid, and were ready to take 
matters into their own hands now that they had grown 
in numbers and strength. Tennessee had been cast off 
by North Carolina in 1784. The Federal government 
had been powerless to organize this territory, and the 
settlers had formed the independent State of Frankland, 
with John Sevier as governor. After great disorder and 
misrule it had fallen to pieces, leaving the people in a 
discontent that boded no good for the strength of the 
new country. Kentucky had demanded separation from 
Virginia and admission to the Union as a separate State. 
After several conventions, composed chiefly of delegates 
from the militia companies, — the only organized body in 
the West, — a petition sent in 1785 had finally been 
accepted by the Virginia Assembly on condition that a 
new convention of the people of Kentucky should de- 
clare for separation, and that the Federal government 
should admit the territory to the Union. 

The Federal government was slow to assume the respon- 
sibility, which it preferred should rest with the State of 
Virginia, for it was without power, especially in the West. 



156 LOUISIANA 

One may easily appreciate the timorous hesitation which 
Congress showed to take up the critical problem which 
Kentucky presented at that time ; for the British still held 
posts within that territory, and kept the Indians in a state 
of hostility, and the Spaniards hovered upon the border 
eager to foment discord. But to the Kentuckians, the delay 
of Congress to aid them in establishing a strong local gov- 
ernment in the face of these dangers was taken as a sign 
of hostility, and many of the people believed that they 
were to be sacrificed by the Federal government to the 
interests of the East and North. The Kentuckians were 
never of a patient temper, and the whole territory was 
roused to the necessity of doing something for itself. Many 
opinions, however, prevented agreement or decision, and 
served merely to increase the disorder. Some were for 
forming an independent republic in alliance with Spain ; 
some wished to submit to Spain and incorporate Kentucky 
as a part of Louisiana ; some wished to appeal to France 
for aid ; others wished to form a volunteer army to cap- 
ture New Orleans and force the Spaniards to grant them 
the right of trade and the use of the Mississippi as the 
only outlet for their produce ; and, finally, the more con- 
servative wished to concentrate all efi'orts upon inducing 
the United States to force Spain to terms by a show of 
war. 

Among all these wrangling factions there was but one 
party organized and capable of united action, — the militia, 
— and the chief influence over that party was controlled 
by James Wilkinson. He had acquired a practical know- 
ledge of the whole situation, and had used all his powers 
to induce the people to distrust Congress and deal with 
the question after methods of their own choosing. He 
was so far successful that in 1787 he was ready to begin 
his independent investigations of the Spanish question. 
In this year he loaded a flat-boat with a cargo of tobacco, 
flour, butter, and bacon, and started down the river to 
New Orleans. It is impossible to say what his real motive 



IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY 157 

was in this enterprise, for he was a fisher of men, who 
baited his hooks for any catch that might rise to his 
lures. It seems little probable that his object was sim- 
ply to trade. One is inclined to believe that he took this 
means of getting in touch with the Spanish for the prose- 
cution of the large schemes which he afterwards broached 
to Mird. However, he may have intended to provoke the 
Spanish to seize his goods and thereby provide a tangible 
excuse for leading a party of filibusters against Louisiana. 
At all events, this was what the Spaniards feared. Wil- 
kinson's importance was well known, and he was allowed 
to pass Natchez unchallenged. At New Orleans the rev- 
enue officers seized his boat, but a merchant went at once 
to Mird and told him that Wilkinson and his cargo had 
been sent merely in order that their arrest might give an 
excuse to the wild ^' Kentuckians " to swarm down the 
river and capture the city. 

At this time, and for long afterwards, the Creoles and 
Spanish of Louisiana had a peculiar idea of the nature 
of "Americans." Except for a few merchants from the 
northern cities, they knew only the rough flat-boat men 
of the upper Mississippi, and to their minds the people 
of the West, known under the generic name of "Ken- 
tuckians,*' were a barbarous people without polish or 
civilization, — men who swore and spat mightily, drank 
deep and shot straight. The numbers and fierceness of 
these men had been exaggerated by rumor, and many of 
the people, not excepting the governor himself, had a 
nervous feeling that if the Westerners knew the real 
weakness of the Province they might be tempted to cap- 
ture it. Mird therefore ordered Wilkinson's cargo re- 
leased, allowed the goods to be sold, and gave the owner 
a friendly interview. This talk served to increase the 
governor's nervousness, for Wilkinson begged him not 
to put himself in danger by refusing to obey the laws of 
his home government, but to seize the boat and cargo if 
the law so ordered. This magnanimous spirit of self- 



158 LOUISIANA 

sacrifice completely convinced Mird that Wilkinson really- 
desired the seizure of his goods as a pretext for hostili- 
ties. He questioned Wilkinson closely about Kentucky, 
its people, and their intentions, though he must have 
gotten small satisfaction if the American was then as 
shrewd as he was in later years. He exerted himself to 
win Wilkinson's friendship, promised to do what he 
could in removing restrictions upon the river trade, and 
hoped that the Westerners might be convinced of the 
real friendliness of the Spaniards of Louisiana to their 
interests. In this he was more successful, for Wilkinson 
seems to have unbosomed himself to Mird and struck 
hands with him over a bargain for more important goods 
than tobacco and flour. He gave the governor a written 
memorial, assuring him "from a heart that cannot de- 
ceive," that Kentucky was on the point of seceding 
from the Union, and that Great Britain was ready to 
aid the people to secure free navigation of the river in 
return for their help in driving out the Spanish. 

What hope Wilkinson held out to Mird that the 
Spaniards might have from the discontent of the West 
with the government of the United States does not ap- 
pear at once, but close relations and a long correspond- 
ence were established between the two during that visit to 
New Orleans. Gardoqui, the Spanish minister to Phila- 
delphia, had meanwhile begun to interest himself in the 
same question. His plan was to induce immigration from 
Kentucky to Louisiana and West Florida. Under his 
auspices Col. George Morgan had founded the settlement 
of New Madrid, and he now sent an agent, D'Arges, 
to New Orleans to order Mird's cooperation in his immi- 
gration schemes. Mird, however, saw the futility of the 
minister's plan to disintegrate Kentucky by luring away 
its people. For other reasons, also, he could not approve 
of this scheme, for he seems already to have commit- 
ted himself to some secret agreement with Wilkinson.* 
1 Gaj'arr^, Spanish Domination, p. 198. 



IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY 159 

He had no desire to allow too extensive an influx of 
Americans into the territory, nor did he now wish to 
grant them so many privileges as would remove their dis- 
content, for upon this he wished to work in the hope of 
detaching them from the United States. However, he 
was compelled for the present to favor certain persons 
and allow other traders to do as Wilkinson had done. 
His people were more than willing to receive the benefits 
of trade, and the officials were appeased by a regular share 
in the profits. Affairs were running thus when Gardo- 
qui, who, as he had no share in the gains of the game 
or part in the larger intrigues, could afford to consider 
his duty to the crown, reported to the Captain-G-eneral 
of Cuba and Louisiana the names of a number of vessels 
and their captains engaged in the illicit commerce and 
warned that official that he had also informed the Court 
of Madrid. The startled officials were now compelled to 
arrest the surprised captains and confiscate their vessels 
and goods. Some favorites, however, were warned off in 
time to escape arrest, and many of those actually arrested 
were let go after a short imprisonment and were reported 
as run away or dead. Moreover, even these rigorous mea- 
sures lasted but a short time, for accident intervened to 
turn aside even the policy of Spain. 

On Good Friday, 1788, a taper burning on the altar 
of a chapel in the house of Don Vicente Nunez,^ in 
Chartres Street, set fire to some of the draperies and 
rapidly consumed the whole building. A strong south 
wind was blowing and carried the flames from house to 
house, until the greater portion of the town was ablaze. 
When the fire first broke out, the priests of the parish 
church refused to allow the bells to sound the alarm, on 
account of the solemn day of mourning which the church 
was observing. The conflagration consequently gained 
such headway before the people were fully roused to the 
danger that all attempts to check it failed. Over eight 
1 Military treasurer of the colony. 



160 LOUISIANA 

hundred buildings were destroyed within five hours, in- 
cluding all the stores, the most important residences, the 
church itself, the town-hall, the convent of the Capu- 
chins, the guard-house, the magazines, and the prison. 
For that night and the next, hundreds of people remained 
shelterless in the ruined streets, many without food or 
sufficient clothing. The government stores were at once 
thrown open and more than seven hundred people sup- 
ported at public expense, till relief came from Cuba and 
St. Domingo. Mird won the praise and love of the peo- 
ple by the kindness and energy with which he labored 
for their comfort, especially in providing a little city of 
tents for the houseless ones who could not find shelter 
in the crowded houses that remained. Vessels were at 
once sent to Philadelphia with twenty-four thousand 
dollars for the purchase of flour, and trade was opened 
with Kentucky to supply the failing public stores. All 
restrictions were at once abolished in the face of the great 
necessity of the people. The rebuilding of the city began 
at once under the active encouragement of the governor. 
But such a loss, almost three million dollars, had crippled 
the city, and the efforts of the people and their governor 
would not have met such prompt success, had not the 
first philanthropist of the city come forward with pow- 
erful aid. Don Andres Almonaster replaced the Span- 
ish school-house, the first public school of the city, he 
rebuilt the parish church, and replaced the old hospital 
founded by the sailor Jean Louis by a new building, the 
present Charity Hospital of St. Charles, at a cost of one 
hundred and fourteen thousand dollars. He also built 
the present Cabildo house and a convent for the Capu- 
chins alongside the church. The old French buildings of 
wood and brick were now replaced by Spanish styles of 
stone, brick, and stucco. On St. Peter Street near Poyal, 
behind the church, Mird erected the Spanish calaboza, a 
grim structure, with cells and dungeons and a huge iron 
gateway closed by those massive Spanish locks whose 



IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY 161 

workmanship is to-day a matter of such curiosity. A new 
arsenal was put up in St. Anthony's Alley and a new 
wooden custom house on the site of the present building. 
The first picturesque arcades of the ' ' French " market 
were also begun a little later. A new government house 
was also erected in Toulouse Street near the Old Levee. 
The dwelling-houses, too, were Spanish in construction. 
Now grew up that picturesque quarter of houses with 
dark, cool corridors, jealously shut courtyards, mullioned 
windows, massive doors, and wrought-iron balconies that 
make to-day this portion of the city unique in the 
United States. 

The crisis had again brought up the old question of 
trade relations with the rest of the Mississippi Valley, 
proving yet more forcibly that nature had bound together 
with common interests and interdependence the inhab- 
itants of the vast territory watered by the great stream, 
whether French, Spanish, or Saxon. Wilkinson was 
again in Kentucky attempting to hasten its separation 
from Virginia and assuring the Spanish that such sepa- 
ration would lead to ultimate secession from the United 
States. Under cover of another cargo of merchandise, in 
charge of Major Isaac Dunn, he sent further confidential 
messages to Mird, assuring him that Kentucky would 
become a State in January, 1789, and that he had taken 
a number of prominent men into the " great scheme," 
especially Col. Alexander Bullitt and Harry Innis, 
whose political designs agreed entirely with Miro's. He 
anticipated no opposition from Congress, for that body, 
so he said, lacked both money and power. This year 
(1788) the Intendant Navarro returned to Spain, and 
there began to urge the government to follow up the 
opening which Mird had made through the agency of 
Wilkinson. In order that Mird might remain unham- 
pered in the contemplated negotiations, Mird was in- 
trusted with the office of Intendant as well as Governor, 
and no one was appointed in Navarro's place. Mird had 



162 LOUISIANA 

tried, probably at Wilkinson's suggestion, to keep Gar- 
doqui out of the game ; but now under orders from Count 
Florida Blanca, Gardoqui sent his agent, D'Arges, to 
Mird for service in Kentucky similar to that which Wil- 
kinson was supposed to be performing. Mird, fearing to 
interfere with the plans of Wilkinson, and perhaps un- 
willing that Gardoqui should have any part in the suc- 
cess for which he hoped, detained the surprised and 
impatient D'Arges in New Orleans upon different pre- 
texts, and wrote to Blanca protesting against intrusting 
a second agent with Wilkinson's plans. In November, 
1788, Oliver Pollock brought the news that John Brown, 
representative of Kentucky in the Virginia Assembly 
and delegate from that body to Congress on the Ken- 
tucky question, had informed him that Congress was not 
likely to admit Kentucky to the Union, and that, as this 
was against the wishes of the people. Brown had pro- 
mised to use his influence in persuading them to join the 
Spaniards. 

Several months now passed without further develop- 
ments. Wilkinson's method in keeping the intrigue in 
his own hands solely and under the greatest secrecy now 
appeared, for in February, 1789, he wrote Miro a letter 
which to the reader of the present day bears evidence 
that the wind was changing. He had found, he wrote, 
that the opposition to his plans was stronger than he 
had at first supposed, and that decided action must be 
postponed for a time ; that the " fear and folly " of the 
people had prevailed, and the Danville convention of 
July had done nothing but consent to wait upon the 
pleasure of Congress ; but that he felt sure of ultimate 
success, since only two men of any prominence, Colonel 
Marshall and Colonel Muter, opposed him, and that the 
certain failure of Congress to regard the interests of the 
West would inevitably turn the feelings of the people to 
Spain. He now suggested that Miro should reinforce 
the restrictions upon the river trade and that the Span- 



IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY 163 

ish embassy at Philadelphia be urged to influence Con- 
gress to relinquish any claims upon the Mississippi that 
might be made in behalf of the Kentuckians, so that the 
people would finally be exasperated to break with the 
Federal government, and might then be completely won 
by the Spaniards' freely offering them in full the rights 
and privileges which their own government could not 
obtain for them. He also harped upon his own impor- 
tant services, the dangers he ran in this service, the sac- 
rifices he had made, and the necessity of employing no 
other agent than himself. To alarm Mird and magnify 
his own importance, he asserted that it was rumored that 
England was ready to give up Gibraltar in exchange for 
the Floridas and the Island of Orleans. He stated that 
the British had sent an agent named Connelly into Ken- 
tucky to buy up partisans. To this agent he had pre- 
tended friendship, won his confidence, and completely 
gotten his plans from him, but was at a loss to imagine 
from what source the British agent had obtained such 
complete information of the plans of Spain. He hinted 
at treachery somewhere, asserted with circumstantial 
proofs that D'Arges w^as a traitor and a French spy, and 
so exalted himself, discredited other agents, and yet left 
a loophole for himself to get out by, should he see the 
necessity of abandoning his Spanish friends. The strange 
letter ends with an assertion of loyalty rendered in his 
best style. He stated that Marshall and Muter might be 
bought over if funds were furnished, but adds that he 
has already spent $5000 from his own private purse in 
the cause and that he can afi'ord to go no further, deli- 
cately leaving Mird to draw his own conclusions. 

Mird seems to have felt some distrust of this man 
who protested so much and did so little, yet who kept 
up an active correspondence supposedly full of secret 
information. On his side, Wilkinson seems to have im- 
agined that, as Mird had received no orders from Spain 
and that no money was forthcoming, perhaps Gardoqui 



164 LOUISIANA 

had been intrusted with the direction of affairs ; there- 
fore, though still writing to Miro as his ^' dearest friend " 
and '^ the man I love," he nevertheless took occasion to 
write to Gardoqui of his own services in promoting " the 
political designs which you seem to entertain in relation 
to this country," and sought to begin a practical corre- 
spondence. Incidentally, he sent down a cargo of tobacco 
to New Orleans and had it sold with Miro's consent. 

Thus matters wore on without settlement or satisfac- 
tion. In 1789, a new issue was raised. A party of influ- 
ential men, Moultrie, Huger, Major Snipes, and some 
others, formed a company at Charleston and purchased 
from the State of Georgia a tract of 52,900 square miles, 
extending from the Yazoo towards Natchez along the 
Mississippi. The Spaniards claimed this territory, and 
had to be conciliated in some way before settlements 
could be made. Wilkinson, hearing of the plan, wrote 
to the company in January, 1790, with his usual pro- 
testations of friendship and unselfish interest, and vol- 
unteered the suggestion that their scheme would be 
impossible unless they sent to New Orleans some man of 
influence and ability to bring about a satisfactory under- 
standing with Miro. He mentioned that he himself had 
some acquaintance with that official, that he had already 
taken some steps that might serve their interests, and 
offered to act as their agent. At the same time he wrote 
to Miro, reported what he had done and what he knew 
of the company, and begged for money to pay the people 
whom he had hired in Kentucky to work for Spain. 
But the path ahead was not now so clear. Spain had 
granted permission to export the products of Kentucky 
through the Mississippi by paying a duty of 15 per cent, 
and Wilkinson bitterly complained to Miro that the peo- 
ple, since this concession, had ceased to talk of separation 
from the United States. The truth of the matter was, 
however, that the final adoption of a Federal Constitu- 
tion in 1789 and Washington's firm and just adminis- 



IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY 165 

tration as President had inspired general confidence in 
the government, even in distant Kentucky. Miro felt 
distinctly, perhaps through Wilkinson's ill-concealed 
change of heart, the subtle change that was slowly trans- 
forming the sentiment of the discontented Kentuckians; 
for when Wilkinson, who had been asked by the Charles- 
ton company to engineer its business, wrote to Mird 
of the matter, the Spanish governor put himself at once 
upon the defensive and announced that under no circum- 
stances could he recognize any claims of Georgia to the 
territory in question, and that he would prevent by force 
of arms any settlement attempted without his consent. 
He had also become tired of Wilkinson's delays and dis- 
trustful of his motives, since he had not yet kept a single 
one of his profuse promises. He therefore wrote to the 
court of Madrid that it was advisable to put Wilkinson 
under a regular salary and hold him as a secret agent 
and nothing more. He also arranged that Sebastian 
should be regularly paid to play the spy upon Wilkin- 
son himself. In May, 1790, Dr. James O'Fallon, agent 
of the company formed to settle the Yazoo lands, re- 
plied to Mird's refusal that the real plan of the company 
was to form an independent state there and put it under 
the tutelage of Spain. Hot upon this letter came an 
enthusiastic recommendation from Wilkinson, saying that 
he had interviewed O'Fallon and found that '' his plan, 
his principles, and his designs agree perfectly with 
ours," but hinted that as O'Fallon was a light charac- 
ter and vain, he should not be solely intrusted with the 
direction of so important a matter.^ But Mird was skep- 
tical of the wisdom of taking, as he put it, ^' a foreign 
state to board with us," until it should be finally demon- 
strated that Spain was not able to settle her own terri- 
tory for herself. He was, moreover, tired of his position, 
and now saw little prospect of success from the schemes 
which Wilkinson's optimism had painted for him in 
1 Gayarrd, Spanish Domination, p. 293. 



166 LOUISIANA 

such rosy colors a short time back. He even petitioned 
the court to relieve him from the responsibilities of his 
office, for he must have felt the futility of the task 
assigned to him. But no successor was sent to relieve 
him, and while he waited he had the disappointment 
of watching the first turn of the tide. 

War now seemed likely to break out between England 
and Spain over the settlement at Nootka Sound, and 
an invasion of the Mississippi Valley from Canada was 
feared. Such a possibility aroused the United States to 
action, and the time was considered propitious to force 
old claims upon Spain. Carmichael, the American 
charge d'affaires at Madrid, was instructed to demand 
the right of free navigation of the Mississippi to its 
mouth for citizens of the United States and even the 
cession of the Island of Orleans and West Florida, on 
condition that the United States would allow no en- 
croachments upon the western side of the river nor allow 
the English to descend through their territory to attack 
the Spanish in Louisiana. The threat was used that this 
acquisition of territory might be obtained through the 
aid of Great Britain. This was indeed turning the tables 
upon Spain ; and though she yet refused to make any 
concessions, Mird must have felt the humiliation of see- 
ing his province forced to assume an attitude of defense 
and to feel that it was scarcely prepared to struggle even 
for its self-preservation. 

There was another difficulty to be met within the 
province itself. The end of the eighteenth century was 
the day of revolutions, of the bloody proclamation of the 
doctrines of the liberty, equality, and perfectibility of 
man. The theories of French socialists had borne fruit 
in the thoughts of men like Thomas Jefferson and had 
played a chief part in the American war for independ- 
ence. America's practical demonstration had in turn re- 
acted upon France. Now the mad spirit of the French 
Ke volution of 1789 had infected the whole world and 



IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY 167 

spread even to Louisiana, where such ideas found fruit- 
ful soil. In Kentucky, also, Jacobin clubs were formed 
to spread ideas more radical than those of the American 
republic. So strongly was the latent republican feeling 
of the French of Louisiana stirred by the spirit of revo- 
lution, that the king of Spain forbade the people to 
receive any box, coin, or clocks stamped with the tradi- 
tional figure of Liberty. Troublous times seemed to 
await the new governor, FrauQois Louis Hector, Baron 
de Carondelet, who assumed the place of the wearied 
Mird on the last day of December, 1791. The convic- 
tion had grown upon the Spaniards that New Orleans 
was in danger from its own revolutionary spirits, and 
the new governor's first efforts were energetically di- 
rected to establishing order and control within the gates 
of his capital. He divided the town into four wards, 
over each of which was an alcade de barrio, a police of- 
ficial who was to supervise the people of his district, 
see that all names, addresses, and changes of residence 
were registered. A tax was laid upon chimneys to pro- 
vide for lighting the city by means of great oil lamps 
swung by chains at the street corners, and also to pay for 
a force of thirteen serenos or night watchmen to patrol 
the streets and call the hours and the weather from 
dark to dawn. The defenses of the city were reported 
by Carondelet as weak, and therefore to strengthen the 
position of the capital in its relation to the United 
States, as well as to win the popular favor of its own 
citizens, Carondelet was authorized by the Spanish gov- 
ernment to neglect to enforce the restrictive trade laws. 
The laws themselves, curiously enough, were not repealed, 
and the American vessels were registered at the custom- 
house as Spanish, but no hindrance for the present was 
put upon their open trading. 

In 1793, the French Eepublic beheaded Louis X"VT 
and Spain declared war against it. The French republi- 
cans in New Orleans, not as large a party as Carondelet 



168 LOUISIANA 

feared, however, showed their enthusiasm by public de- 
monstrations. At the French theatre established by the 
St, Domingan refugees two years before, the crowd de- 
manded "La Marseillaise '^ of the orchestra and joined 
in the patriotic and republican French songs which the 
actors gave from the stage. In the coffee-houses were 
heard many of the same songs that had stirred the mob 
in the streets of Paris. Carondelet knew that Span- 
ish civilization was but skin deep in the Louisianians, 
and that the flesh and blood beneath the surface were still 
French. Uneasy at the display of revolutionary feeling, 
he broke up assemblages of the citizens, stopped the 
patriotic displays at the French theatre, and after a few 
arrests checked the song-singing in the cafds. He busied 
himself to make treaties with the Indians, to strengthen 
the fortifications of the city, and to popularize the Span- 
ish administration by public improvements and great 
attention to public needs. In 1794 another severe fire 
gave him the opportunity to win the people by acts of 
kindness such as Mird had done before him. The church 
of Louisiana was now finally detached from the bishop- 
ric of Havana, and was given its first archbishop, Luis 
de Penalvert y Cardenas. The first newspaper also 
appeared at this time, "Le Moniteur de la Louisiane," 
printed in French. A drainage canal was dug between 
the city and Bayou St. Jean. 

There was need for all the baron's attempts to 
strengthen the position of his government in every way, 
for the spirit of French revolution had many sympathizers 
in America, and the eyes of the discontented were cast 
upon Louisiana. From Philadelphia the agitation caused 
by the sympathizers with the French Pepublic had 
spread to Kentucky. There the opposition to the con- 
servative refusal of Washington and the Federal govern- 
ment to give aid to the republicans across the sea had 
become so bitter and violent that only the neutralizing 
effects of wrangling and discordant factions saved the 



IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY 169 

West from some form of secession. Citizen Genet played 
upon this spirit of discontent and sought to turn it to 
the advantage of France. He sent agents, chiefly a cer- 
tain Charles Despau, to organize in Kentucky an expe- 
dition to seize Louisiana. A French enthusiast from 
New Orleans, Delachaise, went there also for the same 
purpose. At first a considerable success was met by the 
agitators. The Democratic Club of Lexington declared 
"that the right of the people on the waters of the Mis- 
sissippi to the navigation was undeniable, and ought to 
be peremptorily demanded of Spain by the government 
of the United States. " The Jacobin Club of Philadelphia 
sent a flaming letter proclaiming Liberty, Equality, and 
Fraternity from "the Freemen of France to their bro- 
thers in Louisiana," offering the powerful aid of their 
republic to all the nations of the earth in the struggle 
for freedom, and urging the Louisianians to "cease to be 
the slaves " of a government to which they had been 
"shamefully sold." This terrible document in reality 
meant very little, and Carondelet was probably more 
disturbed by the French agitation than he had cause to 
be. In Kentucky, however, there was something more 
behind the excitement than inflated sentiment and glit- 
tering political theories. The party organizing there had 
gone to great lengths. George Rogers Clarke held a com- 
mission as "major-general in the armies of France and 
commander-in-chief of the revolutionary legions on the 
Mississippi." Many influential people were involved, 
and even Governor Shelby was suspected. Wilkinson 
seems to have remained discreetly quiescent while matters 
were thus uncertain, and the ultimate failure of the 
schemes on foot proved the wisdom of his self-control. 
Had the agitation finally resulted in any action, it is 
scarcely probable that France would have gained much 
thereby ; but the Westerners might have seized the op- 
portunity to settle old scores with the Spaniards had not 
Washington effectually muzzled the blatant Genet and 



170 LOUISIANA 

checked the plans of his agents until the people could 
see for themselves the folly of the whole business. 

Carondelet, meanwhile, had' been fortifying his capi- 
tal and locking himself and his people within the gates 
at sundown. To counteract the French influence among 
the Westerners, he sent among them an Englishman 
named Power, who, under pretense of gathering material 
for a natural history, was to take occasion to talk with 
influential people in those parts and endeavor to induce 
them to favor a separation from the United States and 
an alliance with Louisiana under the protection of Spain. 
Power, working more cautiously and judiciously than the 
French agents, and having more substantial backing 
than mere sentiment, seemed likely to have better suc- 
cess. He sought out old friends at once, — Wilkinson, 
Innis, Nicholas, and Sebastian, — and offered hard cash 
for their services. Nothing finally came of these labors, 
but they set in operation again that elaborate system of 
treachery, bribery, and intrigue which made its insidi- 
ous influence felt all through the events of succeeding 
years, and helped to make the actual history of the 
American acquisition of the Mississippi valley a rather 
inglorious episode, entirely unworthy of the vast signi- 
ficance which lay beneath the movement. 

For the present, however, Carondelet had less cause 
to be alarmed, and had some reason to be proud of the 
success of his activity in preserving the peace of his 
province. He did not cease his efforts on that account. 
He encouraged the immigration of French royalists flee- 
ing from the horrors of the Revolution, welcoming them 
as an offset to the republicans he had about him. On 
the Washita (Ouachita) Biver he granted twelve square 
leagues to the Baron de Bastrop;' thirty thousand acres 
to the Marquis de Maison Bouge, and ten thousand 
square arpents to De Lassus and St. Vrain. These con- 
cessions were not settled by the proprietors, but men- 
tion is made of them here on account of the part they 



IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY 111 

were destined to play in the famous scheme of Aaron 
Burr some years later. ' 

The only serious effect of all the revolutionary agi- 
tation, for the present, at least, was upon the negro 
slaves. The revolution of the St. Domingo negroes in 
1791, the hideous massacre of the whites, and the suc- 
cess of the slaves in establishing an anarchy which 
passed for the semblance of freedom, had had its effect 
upon the blacks of Louisiana. Many of the refugees 
from the island had settled in New Orleans and through- 
out the province, and tales of the horrors of the massa- 
cre had been told at every table and by every fireside. 
The negroes of Louisiana had little to complain of, so 
far as treatment went, for the Spaniards had been even 
more lenient than the French in the modifications of 
the Code Noir which they made. Carondelet himself 
was fined heavily for having signed the death-warrant of 
a slave on what was considered insufficient evidence. 
Nevertheless, a conspiracy was formed, apparently at 
the instigation of some discontented whites. Strangely 
enough, too, the movement began on the plantation of 
Julien Poydras, one of the most charitable and humane 
of men. This plantation was in a thinly settled portion 
of the province, in Pointe Coupee Parish, about one 
hundred and fifty miles from New Orleans ; and under 
these favorable conditions and during the absence of 
Poydras the conspiracy was planned with the utmost 
secrecy. The 15th of April, 1795, was set for the upris- 
ing. On that day the whites were to be massacred, an 
army formed, and the whole province finally subdued. 
The details of the hideous vengeance to be taken after 
victory had been won were suggested, no doubt, by the 
tales of the bloody orgies of St. Domingo. It is enough 
to say that no white person was to be left alive except 
the grown girls and women, — a reservation not prompted 
by mercy. Outside of the town itself, the negroes in 
many places greatly outnumbered the whites, and a sud- 



172 LOUISIANA 

den attack might have cost hundreds of lives. But a dis- 
agreement among the leaders caused first a delay, then 
a dispute, and finally a betrayal of the whole plot to the 
commandant of the parish by one of the leaders. All 
these, and among them three white men, were arrested. 
A party of negroes attempted their rescue, but failed after 
losing twenty-five men in the attack. Other arrests were 
made, and, after trial, twenty-three of the chief conspir- 
ators were hanged and the bodies exposed all along the 
course of the river, at points between Pointe Coupee 
and New Orleans, as an object lesson. Why the three 
white men arrested were allowed to escape with banish- 
ment is unexplained, for the hatred of the whites to 
such agitators and traitors of their own race has always 
been more intense than that felt against negroes in sim- 
ilar cases. As a result of the conspiracy, the Cahildo 
petitioned the Court of Madrid to forbid the further 
importation of slaves; and, while waiting an answer, 
Carondelet issued a temporary proclamation to that 
effect. 

Such was the condition of affairs in Louisiana while 
negotiations between the United States and Spain seemed 
finally to offer some hope of satisfactorily adjusting the 
commercial and territorial difficulties. In 1794, Spain 
was involved with both France and England, and gave 
the hint to the United States that she was now willing 
to settle points of disagreement that might remain be- 
tween them. Thomas Pinckney had therefore been trans- 
ferred from London to Madrid, to press American claims. 
Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that Spain had herself 
given the hint that she was willing to talk terms, Pinck- 
ney's first negotiations were made so difficult and humili- 
ating by Godoy that in October of 1795 he demanded 
his passports unless Spain gave immediate and final re- 
ply. The court now came to terms within three days. 
By the treaty then drawn up, the 31st degree of latitude 
was at last conceded by Spain as the boundary between 



IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY 11 S 

the Floridas and the southern portion of the United 
States, and a commission was designated to run the line 
accurately in conjunction with American surveyors ; and 
furthermore citizens of the United States were formally 
granted the right to deposit and store merchandise in 
the port of New Orleans and to export thence free of 
duty for a term of three years, a period which might be 
further extended if the concession were not found inju- 
rious to Spanish interests. In case New Orleans were 
refused as the place of deposit, Spain agreed to name in 
its place another port on the lower Mississippi for the 
use of American merchants. In this treaty Spain granted 
the concessions which the United States had long de- 
manded in vain, but she had no intention of complying 
with the conditions longer than was necessary to tide her 
over her present difficulties ; for, being on the verge of war 
with England, she wished that the province of Louisiana 
should be secured against British invasion from Canada, 
and rightly considered that the interest of the United 
States in that direction could be used as the most elfec- 
tive and economical means of protection. 

Carondelet at once renewed through Thomas Power 
his former intrigues with Innis and Sebastian in Ken- 
tucky for the secession of Kentucky, and assured them 
that Spain had by no means abandoned her claim upon 
the territory east of the Mississippi or her privilege to 
control the commerce of the valley. But Carondelet 
could no longer depend upon his chief hope. The times 
had changed and Wilkinson's heart with them. He had 
been appointed to succeed "Mad Anthony" Wayne as 
commander of the armies of the United States. The ad- 
ministration under Washington had produced such con- 
fidence that even the former malcontents, save perhaps 
a feeble few, had become loyal to the National Govern- 
ment and distrustful of Spain. Moreover, the granting 
of the right of deposit in New Orleans by Spain had 
removed the chief source of discontent. Power had, 



174 LOUISIANA 

therefore, an unfavorable report to make to Carondelet. 
Spain, too, was compelled for the present to hold strictly 
to her agreement ; for in 1796 she had gone to war with 
England, and she was thus doubly handicapped when 
in February, 1797, Andrew Ellicott, the American com- 
missioner, appeared at Natchez and demanded the fulfill- 
ment of the terms of the treaty and the withdrawal of 
the Spanish troops from the territory which the treaty 
had relinquished. Gayoso de Lemos, the Spanish com- 
mandant at Natchez, endeavored to put off Ellicott with 
excuses, and sought to persuade him to go to New Orleans 
for conference with Carondelet. Ellicott refused. Gayoso 
then claimed that he understood that the Spaniards had 
the right to demolish their forts and outposts before 
withdrawing, and that consequently he could not deliver 
them until he had explicit instructions from his minister 
at Philadelphia. The people of the neighborhood were 
mostly Anglo-Saxons, and were impatient of the delays 
which Gayoso sought to create by his many excuses. 
Public meetings were held, which Gayoso attempted to 
stop by making arrests. Ellicott now interfered, threat- 
ening to use force, and people near Natchez organized in 
June, 1797, a Committee of Public Safety, consisting of 
seven prominent men.^ Gayoso, frightened and conscious 
that he could not hold out against any show of force, 
was compelled to recognize the Confinittee as the repre- 
sentative of the people, and to promise to do nothing 
without their consent, at the same time releasing his 
prisoners. The citizens now chose by public meeting a 
permanent committee of nine members to keep a check 
upon the Spanish commander. Carondelet was compelled 
to assent to all their demands, for he was without power 
of resistance, and felt that his capital was so weak that 
its defense would require all his strength and scanty re- 
sources. The province had been damaged by fire, flood, 
and hurricane, and had been scourged by "yellow fever." 
1 Monette's Valley of the Mississippi is here followed. 



IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY 175 

He was made yet more uneasy by the presence of the 
French General CoUot, who had been prying about the 
city, making maps and plans and inspecting the five 
miniature forts which comprised the fortifications of New 
Orleans. He had arrested CoUot and sent him to Phila- 
delphia, but was still kept on the alert by the constant 
rumors that France was again eager to regain Louisiana, 
and that Collot had been sent to reconnoitre the ground. 
Now, in August, 1797, he was relieved of the responsi- 
bility of his position and transferred to Quito. Gayoso 
de Lemos was appointed governor in his place. Charles 
de Grandpre was sent to Fort Panmure at Natchez, but 
the Committee of Public Safety refused to accept him, 
and Captain Minor had to be sent in his place. It was 
now evident that the Spaniards could no longer hold the 
country, and when General Wilkinson in 1798 finally 
ordered Captain Guion to take possession of Fort Pan- 
mure and Fort Nogales, the Spaniards quietly withdrew 
without the formality of final leave-taking. Wilkinson 
himself then came down the river, established himself at 
Natchez, and began the erection of Fort Adams at La 
Koche k Davion. 

Meanwhile the Americans had taken what advantage 
they could of the privilege of deposit in the port of 
New Orleans and had established a consul there. The 
three years provided by the treaty passed in brisk trade, 
for the Americans were assured that the privilege would 
be continued as had been promised. When the period 
expired in 1798, however, the new Intendant, Don 
Ventura Morales, suddenly forbade the use of New Or- 
leans as a place of deposit, but did not provide another 
port as had been agreed in the treaty of 1795. This 
new act of bad faith on the part of the Spaniards roused 
the West as nothing had done before. The navigation 
of the Mississippi had become such a necessity to the 
people inhabiting the upper valley that their very exist- 
ence depended upon it as the sole outlet for their com- 



176 LOUISIANA 

merce and the sole means of disposing of their products. 
The Federal government, also, had become weary of the 
humiliating position which the conduct of Spain had 
long forced it to assume before the nations of Europe. 
Far-seeing statesmen all over the country had begun 
to see that the presence of the Spaniards in the Missis- 
sippi valley and their absolute control of the river would 
forever prevent the federation of States from becoming 
a unified nationality and from assuming any dignified 
position among the nations of the world. The people 
of the West had begun to plan the capture of New Or- 
leans when President Adams ordered three regiments to 
be concentrated on the Ohio and remain ready for action 
while twelve others were gotten into shape for service. 
General Wilkinson was ordered to Washington, and 
went by sea, passing, therefore, through New Orleans. 
While in the city, he was interviewed by the Intendant, 
who apparently got from him no information but that 
the United States were determined upon two things, — 
that neither France nor England should get possession 
of the valley and that no claims or territory would be 
yielded. In the record of this interview, there is no 
trace of the Wilkinson of former days, save in his some- 
what ambiguous statement to Morales that he would 
advise the President to send troops to aid Spain in pre- 
serving Louisiana from the English. 

Gayoso de Lemos now fell suddenly ill and died, 
leaving the direction of the civil affairs of the colony in 
the care of the Auditor, Jose Vidal, and the military in 
charge of Don Francisco Boaligny. In 1799, the Mar- 
quis de Casa Calvo was sent from Cuba to act as gov- 
ernor ad interim. In this condition the Spaniards of 
Louisiana waited for some signs of the storm which all 
felt might sweep down the river at any time. But the 
present administration of the United States took no 
immediate action beyond the precautionary measures 
already mentioned. It will be remembered that the 



IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY 111 

United States had been moved almost to the point of 
war by the insistence of France upon the obnoxious 
treaty of 1778 and by her refusal to pay the claims for 
injuries done to citizens of the United States. Under 
cover of war with France, troops had been massed on 
the Ohio in readiness to fall upon the Spaniards of Lou- 
isiana ; but when, in 1800, Bonaparte signed a treaty 
giving up the treaty of 1778 upon condition that the 
United States pay to her citizens their own spoliation 
claims for acts done by France prior to 1800, the ad- 
ministration was left without this cover for preparations 
against Louisiana. Adams hesitated to advocate open 
war with Spain, as the presidential election was coming 
on, and he wished the responsibility for decision in the 
great crisis to run over to the next term. 

Thus matters stood when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron 
Burr were elected President and Vice-President in 1800. 
Louisiana also entered the critical period about to com- 
mence, with a new governor, Juan Manuel de Salcedo, 
who assumed office in 1801. 



CHAPTEE VIII 

LOUISIANA ACQUIRED BY THE UNITED STATES 

The new President came into office at a time beset with 
diffidulties. A huge problem had been left upon his 
hands by the last administration — the greatest problem 
that the country had been called upon to face since it 
had declared its independence of England. In this cri- 
sis, he had to meet opposition within the country and, 
to a certain extent, to go counter to his owii convictions. 
The powerful judiciary was Federal, wedded to the 
principles of the party which Adams had headed, and 
was savagely against Jefferson. He himself, a stanch 
states '-rights man, was destined by the force of events to 
act as if he had been an imperialist, and became indi- 
rectly the founder of a government that was to be more 
centralized than his abstract theories of political science 
would have tolerated. For the present, the United 
States were in no sense a nation — merely a federation 
of distrustful and inharmonious States. The new theory 
of democracy put into practice in their government was 
all untried. The country had grown beyond its capacity 
for centralized control, and yet, paradoxically, the ac- 
quisition of a new territory, the absorption of a new 
race, and a vast expansion far beyond the wildest dreams 
of any man living was needful for the establishment of 
the very nationality which the federation yet lacked. 

The interests of the distant sections of the republic 
were diverse, and pulled the feeble national government 
in its indecisive powerlessness in opposite directions, 
forcing it to sue for favors at the back doors of European 



ACQUIRED BY THE UNITED STATES 179 

courts. In the face of danger of invasion of the Missis- 
sippi Valley by France, England, or Spain, the United 
States had been compelled to submit to many humilia- 
tions in their diplomatic relations with all three of these 
countries, and could hope to have no international stand- 
ing or warrant of respect in Europe till they were free 
to act regardless of the Mississippi question and were 
relieved from the danger which threatened in that di- 
rection. Furthermore, the population of the whole coun- 
try was, in 1800, but little over five millions, and the 
expenses of the government exceeded its receipts. 

Jefferson was a man of peace. He attempted to meet 
his problems with diplomacy and legislation. His first 
care was to reduce the public debt by cutting down the 
army and navy ; by economies in the civil expenses and 
by increasing the external revenue from imposts, the in- 
ternal revenue was reduced to relieve the people. So well 
was his work and Gallatin's done that his administration 
reduced the debt almost one half, in spite of the expense 
caused by the purchase of Louisiana. 

He was from Virginia, and Kentucky's interests were 
consequently well known to him. He knew the national 
importance of the Mississippi. Though he was finally 
favored by extraordinary circumstances, the problem was 
at first a most perplexing one, and it is to the credit of 
his discernment and remarkable foresight that the problem 
was attacked at once in the proper way for ultimate 
success. 

It was already recognized throughout the world that 
a new power was bent upon the domination of Europe. 
The immense genius of Napoleon, his success, his insa- 
tiable ambition, and inexhaustible energy made him an 
uncertain element in all calculations. It was not known 
where his power would cease or in which direction he 
would next turn it. It was known, however, or at least 
widely rumored, that he intended to regain the Mississippi 
Valley from Spain and work it into his vast schemes. 



180 LOUISIANA 

It was also rumored that he had accomplished something 
in this direction by the treaty of San Ildefonso, in 
October, 1800. Early in the spring of 1801, these dis- 
quieting reports began to reach the United States. In 
March, E-ufus King, minister to England, had written to 
Secretary Madison that he believed the report that Spain 
had ceded Louisiana and the Eloridas to Erance. He 
knew that Napoleon had been working in that direction j 
and, though nothing had been officially announced, he 
fancied that Erance had received its desired compensation 
for the cession of Tuscany to the Duke of Parma. He 
stated that General Collot was about to go again to Louis- 
iana ; and in view of the serious danger to the United 
States, it was to be regretted that they had not a minister 
at Paris. In June he wrote again, stating that the British 
government was alarmed lest Erance, by regaining Louis- 
iana, should reach Canada again and annul the results 
of the Seven Years' War. Pinckney at Madrid was in- 
structed to make inquiry into the truth of these reports, 
and in September, 1801, Kobert H. Livingston was sent as 
minister to Erance with instructions to get from that 
government an acknowledgement of its acquisition of 
Louisiana and to offer to relinquish the new spoliation 
claims in return for the cession of the Island of Orleans 
to the United States. There was no thought for the 
present of attempting to prevent Napoleon from taking 
possession of the western bank of the river. 

By the signing of peace with England in March, 1801, 
Napoleon was left free to pursue his plans toward Louis- 
iana, and they were exactly what had been suspected, 
though for the present they were kept as secret as might 
be. Eor a long time Louisiana had been an objective point 
in his vast scheme of conquest. In fact, immediately 
after Marengo ( June 14, 1800,) he had begun negotia- 
tions with Spain through Berthier for the acquisition 
of that territory, and had begun at once to collect infor- 
mation about the country. M. de Pontalba submitted to 



ACQUIRED BY THE UNITED STATES 181 

him in September, 1800, an elaborate memorial ^ giving 
a full description of Louisiana, its resources, its impor- 
tance to France, a review of its history, and a remarkably 
clear statement of its present relation to its American 
neighbors. 

Less than a month after Napoleon had received this 
remarkably full and exact memorial giving him the details 
of what he should know of the conditions of Louisiana 
and its political surroundings, he closed with Spain, in 
the treaty of San Ildefonso, October 1, 1800, a bargain 
by which France was to have Louisiana and the Floridas. 
In return, Tuscany, won by French arms, was to be 
given to the Duke of Parma, husband of the daughter 
of Carlos IV, then king of Spain. The treaty was not 
ratified by the king and was therefore kept secret ; it is 
important, however, as the basis of all subsequent treaties. 
Napoleon, early in 1801, sent his brother Lucien to 
succeed Berthier in the negotiations with Spain for Lou- 
isiana. Godoy, though not in office, wielded a prepon- 
derating influence in the affairs of the kingdom and soon 
acquired an undue ascendency over Lucien. On March 
21, 1801, a second treaty was negotiated at San Ildefonso, 
similar to the first, but to this also the king hesitated 
to put his signature on account of his unwillingness to 
abandon the Floridas until the Duke of Parma had been 
completely assured of his possession of the throne of 
Tuscany. 

Meanwhile, Eufus King had obtained a copy of the 
treaty of San Ildefonso, and in article 3d found confir- 
mation of the cession of Louisiana to France. He for- 
warded his information at once to Secretary Madison ; 
but Livingston, in Paris, remained in doubt, for Talley- 
rand constantly assured him that, while the cession had 
been discussed, no final settlement had been concluded. 
This was more true than Livingston was inclined liter- 
ally to believe, for he could not see how Spain, in her 
1 Given in full by Gayarr^ in the Spanish Domination, pp. 410 et seq. 



182 LOUISIANA 

present condition of dependence upon Napoleon, could 
refuse the demands upon which he seemed so determined. 
Napoleon, however, found difficulties arising in his way 
and distracting his attention from more distant plans to 
those nearer home. Nelson surprised and defeated the 
Danish fleet at Copenhagen, further crippling Napoleon's 
already feeble naval resources. Massena's scheme of 
invading India came to nought on account of the assassi- 
nation of Czar Paul. Godoy also interfered with Napo- 
leon's intentions, by inducing Lucien to sign a treaty 
of peace with Portugal instead of blockading the ports 
of that country against England. Godoy now felt able to 
delay the final ratification of the cession of Louisiana and 
the Floridas, on the ground that France had not fulfilled 
the part of the treaty relating to the Italian cession as 
scrupulously as had at first been intended. 

Napoleon was therefore willing again to make tem- 
porary peace with England in 1801, so as to be free to 
force- Spain to consent to the cession. He determined 
to make the slave troubles in St. Domingo the excuse 
for sending a strong army to America, and to use that 
island as a basis of action against Louisiana. Conditions 
there seemed to favor his plans. The negroes had again 
revolted in 1791, and their liberty had been formally 
granted by the National Assembly when, in 1794, it had 
abolished slavery throughout the world. A negro of great 
ability, Toussaint L'Ouverture, had been made chief 
of the blacks in 1797, and at the head of four thou- 
sand men had cleared the Spanish portion of the island. 
When Prance and the United States were at the point 
of war a year later, Toussaint, then practically dictator, 
had made overtures to the Americans in the hope of 
gaining more support for his plan of establishing an inde- 
pendent black nation from the United States than from 
Prance, for under Napoleon's rapid assumption of supreme 
power there was less talk of liberty than formerly. In 
October, 1801, Napoleon ordered General Le Clerc to 



ACQUIRED BY THE UNITED STATES 18S 

hold himself in readiness to go to St. Domingo and 
subdue the blacks. January, 1802, found Le Clerc busy 
on the island attempting to stamp out the irregular yet 
harassing warfare of the negroes and struggling against 
the far more fatal fever which was rapidly reducing the 
splendid army which Napoleon had sent out. Elsewhere 
all was going well, for in June, 1802, Napoleon wrote tO' 
Decres, Minister of Marine: "My intention is to take 
possession of Louisiana in the shortest possible time. . . . 
Let me know the number of men you think necessary, 
both infantry and artillery. Present me a plan for organ- 
izing the colony, both military and civil, for works, for- 
tifications, etc. Make a map of the coast from St. Au- 
gustine to Mexico, and a geographical description of the 
different cantons of Louisiana, with the population and 
resources of eaqh." Preparations were at once pushed 
forward to send five battalions of infantry, two companies, 
of artillery, sixteen pieces of cannon, and three thousand 
muskets in November, 1802, to St. Domingo for opera- 
tions in Louisiana. With this force he intended to send 
a general of division and three brigadiers, showing by 
this large proportion of important officers that he meant 
to raise a much greater force in St. Domingo or perhaps 
in Louisiana itself. No less a person than Bernadotte was 
first named to command this army, but he, being unwill- 
ing on account of his own ambitions to leave Europe, 
forced Napoleon to accept his resignation by his evident 
lack of interest in the scheme. General Victor was ap- 
pointed in his place. The sailing of the expedition was 
delayed, however, by the news that came from St. Do- 
mingo. LeClerc had been unable to quell the insurrection 
and had lost all but one seventh of his army from fevers. 
Napoleon was therefore compelled to abandon his first 
intention of concentrating on the island the army which 
he had intended to send into Louisiana. Nevertheless, he 
pushed forward his negotiations with Spain, and on Octo- 
ber 15, 1802, procured the king of Spain's signature to 



184 LOUISIANA 

the treaty ceding Louisiana and the Floridas to France 
upon the conditions that the new kingdom of Etruria, 
given to the husband of the Infanta, be recognized by 
England, Austria, and the former Duke of Tuscany, 
whose province had been incorporated in it, and that 
France must pledge herself to restore Louisiana to Spain 
in case the king of Etruria lost his kingdom, and not to 
cede Louisiana to any other foreign power. The treaty 
restored to France the same extent of territory that had 
been ceded by her to Spain in 1763, but the boundary 
of the western frontier had never been fixed and was 
still allowed to remain undefined. It is probable that 
[Napoleon was purposely neglectful in this matter, for it 
seems evident that he intended to claim or to take the 
whole coast of the Gulf of Mexico as far to the southwest 
as the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande), and in time make good 
the French claims to the northwest.^ 

On October 16, 1802, the day after the king had 
signed the treaty of cession, the Intendant Morales at 
New Orleans issued an order which forced the United 
States to more decisive action, and practically changed 
the character of the negotiations. Jefferson had at first 
aimed only to prevent the cession of Louisiana to France 
and to exact from Spain a final recognition of the right 
of Americans to the unrestricted navigation of the Mis- 
sissippi. In event of failure, his alternative had been an 
alliance with England. "There is on the globe, '^ he 
wrote to Livingston, "one single spot, the possessor of 
which is our natural and habitual enemy. . . . The day 
that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the 
sentence which is to restrain her (i. e. France) forever 
within her low- water mark. It seals the union of two 
nations, who, in conjunction, can maintain exclusive 
possession of the ocean. From that moment we must 
marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation. '^ This 
threat had been effectively dangled before Napoleon to 

1 W. M. Sloane in American Historical Review, iv, 445. 



ACQUIRED BY THE UNITED STATES 185 

induce him to abandon whatever schemes he might have 
for the conquest of the Mississippi Valley. At this point, 
Morales, apparently upon his own authority, ordered a 
more strict enforcing of the laws of commerce, again ab- 
solutely suspended the right of deposit, and completely 
closed the port against Americans, in spite of the fact 
that his own people suffered almost a famine from the 
stoppage of the supplies received from Kentucky and 
Philadelphia. A volley of petitions was hurled by the 
enraged Westerners at Congress and the President. " The 
Mississippi is ours," they declared, "by the law of 
nature; it belongs to us by our numbers, and by the 
labor we have bestowed on those spots which, before 
our arrival, were barren and desert. Our innumerable 
rivers swell it, and flow with it into the Gulf of Mexico. 
Its mouth is the only issue which nature has given to 
our waters, and we wish to use it for our vessels. No 
power in the world shall deprive us of this right." Sal- 
cedo, the Spanish governor of Louisiana, became uneasy 
at the rumors which reached him from Kentucky and 
Tennessee. In reply to a demand for an explanation of 
Morales' action from Governor Claiborne of the Missis- 
sippi territory, Salcedo sent an apologetic letter, which 
was submitted to Congress in December, 1802. •*■ He dis- 
claimed all responsibility for Morales' act, and said that 
no such instructions had come from the king, but that 
the intendant had stopped the trade on account of the 
intolerable abuse of the privilege by some of the Ameri- 
cans. He explained that Morales could not name any 
other place of deposit until one had been designated by 
the king. He added that he was confident that this 
would soon be done, and that the king would " not re- 
fuse to atford to the American citizens all the advantages 
they can desire." But the time was past now when ex- 
cuses or promises could any longer restrain the people of 
the West from gaining possession of New Orleans and 

1 See Messages of the Presidents. 



186 LOUISIANA 

freeing themselves forever from dependence upon the 
v^hims of Spanish officials. Strong pressure was brought 
to bear upon the national government to declare war and 
sanction the capture of New Orleans. But Jefferson yet 
hesitated, still hoping that something might be accom- 
plished by his still unfruitful embassy to France. 

Livingston at Paris, meanwhile, had been making no 
headway. He was convinced that Napoleon had designs 
upon Louisiana, but he did not think that terms had 
been finally settled, for he could get no answer from the 
evasive Talleyrand to his persistent questions, and he 
and the government which he represented were com- 
pelled to remain in this humiliating posture until long 
after the king of Spain had signed the treaty. He 
learned of the conclusion of the agreement and of Napo- 
leon's determination to take possession of Louisiana in 
November, 1802, and made an offer to purchase New 
Orleans and the Floridas, leaving Napoleon all the ter- 
ritory west of the river. Still the reticence of Talley- 
rand and the secrecy of Napoleon caused him to suspect 
some movement against the United States. He wrote im- 
mediately to warn his government, and advised them to 
strengthen their forces in the neighborhood of Natchez. 

Livingston had now been a year in Paris, but was no 
whit nearer a solution of the matter, nor had he yet 
received a fair answer to any of his questions. So dis- 
quieted were the people of the United States by rumors 
and delays, that in January, 1803, Jefferson urged 
Monroe to go to Paris as minister extraordinary to assist 
Livingston and reassure the people that every means was 
being used to further their interests. But the people 
had not Jefferson's reliance upon the power of diplo- 
macy. They were determined that the question should 
now be settled for all time, as the whole nation had be- 
come weary of being dragged into the entanglement of 
European policies and being under the continual neces- 
sity of begging and demanding of the insolent powers 



ACQUIRED BY THE UNITED STATES 187 

those very rights to which they believed themselves 
entitled by nature and necessity. On February 14, 1803, 
Mr. E-oss of Pennsylvania announced in the Senate that, 
while Jefferson's diplomatic tactics were all very proper, 
perhaps more forcible arguments could be brought to 
bear, and that the negotiations already so humiliatingly 
prolonged might be more satisfactorily hastened if the 
United States had actual possession of the territory in 
question, without giving Napoleon the opportunity to 
gain a footing on American soil with his invincible 
legions. The House had sent an approved bill to the 
Senate to authorize Jefferson to spend $2,000,000 in 
buying influence in Madrid and Paris. Furthermore, 
as the bill was secret in intent, Boss justly declared it 
"extraordinary,." and asserted that the people had a 
full right to know what was being done. He then in- 
troduced resolutions to the effect that, as the United 
States had an "indisputable right" to the free naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi River and to a place of deposit 
at New Orleans, the refusal of these rights were acts 
hostile to the honor and interests of the country, and 
that the President be authorized to take possession of 
"such place or places in the same island (Orleans) or 
the adjacent territories " as might be necessary to the 
enforcing of those rights ; that he be authorized to order 
out the militia of Georgia, South Carolina, Ohio, Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi up to fifty thousand 
men, and employ them with the regular troops for this 
purpose, and that the sum of $5,000,000 be appropriated 
to that end. This resolution was hotly debated for three 
days, but was finally rejected by a vote of fifteen to 
eleven, and a somewhat milder one was substituted for 
it, authorizing the President to require the executives of 
the several States to equip and hold in readiness eighty 
thousand militia, and that money be appropriated as re- 
quired for this purpose and for erecting arsenals near 
the seat of trouble. 



188 LOUISIANA 

Copies of the Ross resolution were immediately sent 
to Pinckney at Madrid and to Livingston at Paris, so 
that they might be used to show the determination of 
the people of the United States; and when Monroe set 
out for France he carried instructions to demand the 
"cession of New Orleans and the Floridas to the United 
States, and consequently the establishment of the Mis- 
sissippi as the boundary between the United States and 
Louisiana." Livingston had already made such a de- 
mand, and Napoleon had considered it enough to detain 
Victor's armament from sailing. Livingston had taken 
advantage of Napoleon's willingness to think over his 
offer to prepare for him a detailed memorial, endeavor- 
ing to show in what way the money and friendship of 
the United States gained by the cession of New Orleans 
to them would be of more service to Napoleon than the 
whole province held by him against their will and in the 
face of their certain resistance. At this point England 
showed signs of war, and Livingston held out to Napo- 
leon the prospect that England itself might seize Louis- 
iana, or at least would assist the United States in such 
an attempt. Meanwhile, the British fleet watched the 
Channel, and Napoleon, not daring to provoke an attack 
upon his comparatively feeble navy, still held back Gen- 
eral Victor. 

On the 11th of April, 1803, Talleyrand came to Liv- 
ingston and startled him by asking him how much the 
United States would give for the whole of Louisiana. 
Here was an undreamed-of proposition, and Livingston, 
being entirely uninstructed and unauthorized to negoti- 
ate such a tremendous bargain, could only reply that 
his government wished to acquire only New Orleans; 
but being pressed by Talleyrand, he finally hazarded 
the statement that he thought the country might give 
20,000,000 francs, provided France paid the American 
claims for spoliation done since 1800. Talleyrand re- 
marked that he, too, spoke unofficially, and had merely 



ACQUIRED BY THE UNITED STATES 189 

asked his question "because the idea had struck him." 
Here the matter dropped for some days. 

The news of the cession to France had now reached 
Louisiana. Preparations were begun to quarter and sup- 
ply the expected French officers and their troops. The 
Cabildo sold at auction the privilege of supplying the 
French army with meat. On March 2Qj 1803, Colo- 
nial Prefect Laussat arrived at New Orleans and was 
received with full honors. The people, however, did 
not show the expected enthusiasm for the return of 
French rule. -^ They had begun to feel themselves Amer- 
icans, and that their chief interests were bound up with 
those of the United States far more than with distant 
Europe. Free trade was necessary to their welfare and 
prosperity, and in this respect France did not promise 
liberty. Moreover, there was a fear that the new repub- 
lican ideas of France might cause the ruin of the plant- 
ers by abolishing slavery. The Ursuline nuns, also, still 
thinking of the blasphemies of the French Revolution 
and the closing of the religious houses in France, fan- 
cied that they would be treated in the same way, and 
petitioned the Spaniards to allow them to withdraw to 
Havana. In vain Laussat sought to reassure them, and 
in vain the people begged the Sisters to remain. All of 
the community of twenty-five, except nine, left the con- 
vent on the evening of Whitsunday; and followed by 
Casa Calvo, who had come to honor the ceremonies of 
transfer, Salcedo, and a great crowd of citizens, the dis- 
consolate band of veiled women went aboard ship and 
abandoned the colony to the sacrilegious laws of France.^ 

In the face of such a reception, Laussat set to work 
to popularize his government and rouse a faint response 
from the apathetic people. He told them that they had 
been alienated under a weak and corrupt sovereign, but 
that the French people had never forgotten them, and 

1 Barb^-Marbois, Histoire de la Louisiane, pp. 224-227. 

2 Miss King's Neio Orleans, p. 158. 



190 LOUISIANA 

that now the great and just man at the head of affairs 
was bent upon restoring to France the glory of her 
former possessions and had brought back Louisiana to 
her kindred. To this address, some of the citizens of 
IS'ew Orleans and some planters of French birth or de- 
scent responded with written addresses announcing their 
loyalty to France. The intensity of these expressions, 
however, could not compensate Laussat for the general 
indifference of the people. He distrusted the Spanish 
officials, was galled by the universal testimony of even 
his most ardent compatriots in praise of the kind and 
just rule of their late governors, and he showed plainly 
to the venerable Salcedo and courtly Casa Calvo that 
he believed them to be secretly influencing the people 
against France. The Spanish commissioners, on May 18, 
1803, published a proclamation formally announcing the 
transfer and stating that the boundaries of the new French 
province would be the same as those specified in Article 5 
of the definitive treaty of Paris in 1763, and that con- 
sequently the settlements from Bayou Manchac to the 
line of separation between them and the United States 
would belong to the Spanish province of West Florida. 
But Laussat 's reports to his government are full of un- 
easiness. He found his position almost as anomalous as 
that of Ulloa, of unhappy memory, had been — a sort 
of shadow of authority, waiting for his government to 
assume full control of the province and set at rest the 
disquieting rumors that the paternal intentions of Napo- 
leon were but a myth and that Louisiana had been al- 
ready surrendered to the United States. If Laussat had 
never prayed before, he learned now, and his prayers 
were always for General Victor and his soldiers. 

While Laussat was thus vainly trying to convince the 
Louisianians that France had again restored them to her 
maternal bosom, Napoleon, the real France, had about 
made up his mind to abandon them altogether. The 
temper of the United States was evident to him from 



ACQUIRED BY THE UNITED STATES 191 

the Eoss resolution and from newspaper articles to which 
his attention had been assiduously pointed. He knew 
that war with England was inevitable and that in such 
an event he would be unable to prevent Louisiana from 
being seized by the British, or that, as was more proba- 
ble, an alliance between England and the United States 
would allow the latter to absorb the whole Mississippi 
Valley. On April 10, 1803, Napoleon called Decres and 
Barbe-Marbois to consultation and asked their opinions 
on the matter, stating that he was convinced that the 
present attitude of England would force him to abandon 
Louisiana, and that, rather than have his ancient enemy 
rob France of yet another province in North America, 
he thought of selling the country to the United States 
and, by thus adding to their power, finally giving Eng- 
land a most powerful rival. Marbois agreed with him 
in every respect, but Decres urged the importance of 
Louisiana to France. France, he said, needed colonies 
for her support, as England did, and what colony could 
be more desirable than Louisiana ? If, in the event of 
war, England should seize Louisiana, France, all-power- 
ful as she was on the Continent, could seize Hanover 
and force the British to an exchange. Finally, with 
prophetic discernment worthy of Napoleon himself, De- 
cres opened a dream of the future that must have 
touched sharply Napoleon's own ambitious and far- 
reaching designs and sorely shaken his conviction of the 
practical necessities of the present. * * The navigation to 
the Indies," said Decres, "by doubling the Cape of 
Good Hope, has changed the course of European trade, 
and ruined Venice and Genoa. What will be its direc- 
tion if, at the Isthmus of Panama, a simple canal should 
be opened to connect one ocean with the other ? The 
revolution which navigation will then experience will be 
still more considerable, and the circumnavigation of the 
globe will become easier than the long voyages that are 
now made in going to and returning from India. Louis- 



192 LOUISIANA 

iana will be on this new route, and it will then be ac- 
knowledged that this possession is of inestimable value. 
. . . There does not exist on the globe a single port, 
a single city, susceptible of becoming as important as 
New Orleans." With Louisiana and a navy, France 
might control the future commerce of the world. 

After hearing the ministers, Napoleon dismissed them 
without a word, but next morning called Marbois to him 
and said that he had just received important dispatches 
from England telling of immense preparations being made 
there which had decided him to renounce Louisiana. He 
instructed Marbois to go at once to Livingston and nego- 
tiate the sale without waiting for the arrival of Monroe. 
Livingston, meanwhile, tired of the long delay and the 
apparent hopelessness of success, had announced to Talley- 
rand that upon the arrival of Monroe he would advise his 
government to abandon negotiation and seize New Orleans 
by force. The same day, April 12th, Monroe arrived. 

On the 13th, while Monroe and Livingston were dining 
with other company, Marbois was noticed walking in the 
garden of the embassy. He was called in, and intimated 
that he had business of importance but could not commu- 
nicate it till after the company had withdrawn. Later in 
the evening Livingston sought him out, and was informed 
that Napoleon had decided to let the whole of Louisiana 
go to the Americans if they would give 100,000,000 francs 
and abandon the spoliation claims. Napoleon was as yet 
in name merely the First Consul of the French Bepublic, 
and in thus taking upon himself the sale of so vast a 
province was assuming extraordinary powers. In fact, this 
was his first great act of imperialism in disregard of the 
republican government. Livingston M'-as naturally star- 
tled at such an offer, and felt that he and Monroe had 
no authority to assume such a responsibility as the gov- 
ernment of the United States itself had not even con- 
sidered. He told Marbois that the price demanded was 
too great, and that the United States " would be per- 



ACQUIRED BY THE UNITED STATES 193 

fectly satisfied with New Orleans and the Floridas, and 
had no disposition to extend across the river.'' But Napo- 
leon's resolve had been taken. He meant to get rid of 
the whole province. Marbois therefore proposed to Liv- 
ingston to let Louisiana go for 60,000,000 francs and the 
assumption by the United States of their own spoliation 
claims, which amounted to some 20,000,000 francs. Liv- 
ingston considered this also too great a price, and tried 
to convince Marbois that the United States in alliance 
with England might easily seize the country. Marbois, 
on his part, would not lower his offer, and sought to per- 
suade Livingston of the immense advantage of Louisiana 
and the friendship of Napoleon to the United States. 
The interview closed at this point, but the negotiation 
had at last been established upon a practical basis. After 
consultation, Monroe and Livingston decided to attempt 
to consummate the purchase for 40,000,000 francs, and 
in case this offer were rejected to go as high as 50,000,000, 
the spoliation claims being included. The first offer was 
made on April 15th, and rejected by Napoleon. The sec- 
ond offer was then made as an ultimatum. It was evi- 
dently less than Napoleon had hoped to get, but, according 
to Marbois, he had become convinced that he could not 
prevent Louisiana from being taken, and considered that 
any price would be so much clear profit as well as capital 
for his immediate necessities. The English fleet could 
prevent him from throwing troops into Louisiana, should 
the United States seize it, and the ruined army in St. 
Domingo could be of no service. He needed money for 
the war with England, he needed the willing support of 
the people of France to consummate his own schemes 
of personal ambition, and therefore he did not wish to 
levy taxes at the very outset of his imperial policy. The 
sale of Louisiana would thus launch him fully upon his 
course. A bargain was now quickly struck, and on April 
30th the ministers of the United States consented on the 
part of the government to pay 80,000,000 francs for the 



194 LOUISIANA 

whole of Louisiana, 20,000,000 of which were to go to 
the payment of spoliation claims made against France 
since the year 1800. By the articles of the treaty drawn 
up and signed by Monroe, Livingston, and Barbe-Marbois, 
the United States acquired the same territory which France 
had received from Spain by the treaty of San Ildefonso, 
on October 1, 1800, that is to say, the same territory which 
France had ceded to Spain in 1763. Ships of France and 
Spain, for a period of twelve years, were to be admitted 
to Louisiana free of all duties, save those paid by citi- 
zens of the United States, and during that time no other 
nation should have equal rights. Article 3d of the treaty 
required that the people of Louisiana be admitted as soon 
as possible to all the rights, advantages, and immunities 
of citizens of the United States. "When the signing had 
been done, Livingston rose and said : ^' We have lived 
long, but this is the noblest work of our lives. . . . From 
this day the United States take their place among powers 
of the first rank ; the English lose all exclusive influ- 
ence in the affairs of America. . . . The United States 
will reestablish the maritime rights of all the world, 
which are now usurped by a single nation." That Napo- 
leon fully appreciated the importance of the event is shown 
by his oft-quoted remark : " This accession of territory 
strengthens forever the power of the United States ; and 
I have just given England a maritime rival that will 
sooner or later humble her pride.'' 

Thus it happened that Laussat's act of taking pos- 
session of Louisiana for France on the 30th of Novem- 
ber, 1803, was but a melancholy event, for at the same 
time he had to make public announcement that the terri- 
tory had been ceded to the United States. Nevertheless, 
in spite of his disappointment, he handsomely congratu- 
lated the people upon the prospect of becoming free 
citizens. He took possession with great formality, and 
established a provisional government. Etienne de Bore, 
one of the most influential planters of the colony, and 



ACQUIRED BY TUE UNITED STATES 195 

father of the now flourishing sugar industry, was made 
mayor of the town of New Orleans ; a municipal council 
was chosen to act in place of the Cabildo, and Bellechasse 
was put in command of the little army of militia. The 
existing laws were not interfered with, and the Black 
Code, except such parts as would be inconsistent with 
the laws of the United States, was ordered to continue 
in force.-^ The Creoles of Louisiana apparently accepted 
their coming union with the United States contentedly, 
for Monette relates that, as the Spanish garrisons with- 
drew, some uneasiness was ,felt lest the lowest class of 
disafiiected Spaniards and Mexicans in the town, and 
especially the free negroes and mulattoes, might cause 
trouble, and a battalion of Americans was formed under 
Daniel Clark, the American consul, and joined by a large 
number of the French Creoles. This battalion, some 
three hundred strong, organized and drilled on Davis's 
rope-walk on Canal Street, and patrolled the town day 
and night until the United States troops arrived. 

Jefferson had meanwhile commissioned W. C. C. 
Claiborne, Governor of the Mississippi Territory, to as- 
sume the provisional government of Louisiana, and had 
ordered General Wilkinson, with a detachment of militia 
from Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, to go with him 
to take formal possession. On December 17, 1803, this 
force, under the two American commissioners, camped 
two miles above the city, and word was sent to Laussat 
asking if he were ready to receive them. Wilkinson and 
Claiborne, with an escort of thirty horsemen, paid a for- 
mal visit to Laussat in New Orleans, and the following 
day Laussat returned the call at their camp. On Tues- 
day, December 20, 1803, the colonial prefect drew up 
his militia on the public square in front of the council- 
house to receive the Americans. A large crowd thronged 
the streets and surrounded the Place d'Armes to witness 
the ceremonies. As the Americans entered the gates of 
1 Martin, History of Louisiana, ii, 197. 



196 LOUISIANA 

the town, a salute of twenty-one guns was fired from the 
forts, and in a few moments their troops were drawn up 
in the square opposite the local militia. The two com- 
missioners entered the council-house, and presented their 
credentials to Laussat. These were read aloud, as were 
also the treaty of cession, the powers of the French 
commissioner, and finally the proces-verhal of transfer. 
The prefect then delivered the keys of the city to Clai- 
borne and led the new governor to the balcony of the 
council-house facing the militia and the people. Laussat 
then absolved the people from their allegiance to France, 
and Claiborne made in English a speech which was not 
understood, assuring the new citizens of the United 
States that their rights would be preserved and their 
commerce and agriculture encouraged. In the midst of 
a general silence, the French flag was lowered and the 
American raised. As the two flags met halfway, a gun 
was fired, and the batteries and vessels in the harbor 
saluted. A few Americans patriotically grouped at the 
street corner set up a shout, and Louisiana was a terri- 
tory of the United States. 



CHAPTER IX 

DESCRIPTION OF THE CEDED TERRITORY DISPUTES 

IN CONGRESS OVER ITS ADMISSION 

It was a vast territory that had now become a part of 
the United States, and its boundaries, north, west, and 
south, were vague and undetermined. It was well, per- 
haps, that they were thus left unfixed, allowing the 
United States to press its claims to a yet greater extent 
of territory, demanding, tempting the expansion of the 
republic westward over the prairies of the West to the 
Rocky Mountains and beyond the mountains to the sea. 
Vague boundaries were a good policy for a young republic 
of imperialistic tendencies — a Napoleonic nation. Per- 
haps this was what Napoleon meant when he said, in re- 
gard to the ambiguity of the terms describing the bounds 
of the territory : " If no obscurity existed in the terms 
of the treaty, it would be well to put it there. '' On the 
north, Louisiana touched the English province of Can- 
ada, though the exact line of division was not fixed until 
1818. On the west, the vague, wavering line of Span- 
ish possessions feebly attempted to restrain the new 
American acquisition. But the French had some early 
claims upon this region, not as good or as early as the 
Spanish, but still good enough to furnish the Anglo- 
Saxons with a pretext for swarming over the first tacitly 
acknowledged lines. In 1704, Bienville had reported^ 
that about one hundred and ten Canadians, in small 
separate bands, were scattered about the country of the 
upper Mississippi, and the " Lettres Edifiantes " of the 

1 Margry, vi, 180. 



198 LOUISIANA 

Jesuits contain accounts of early missions from 1706 on- 
wards ; but when in the same year a party of Canadians 
ascended the Missouri they found that the Spaniards had 
been before them, trading and working the mines. -^ The 
first clear intimation of what the French considered the 
boundary of their discovery, after La Salle's failure to 
make good his claim to the whole West as far as Mexico, 
Old and New, is found in the memorial of the mission- 
ary priest Lemaire, dated January 15, 1714. '^ He writes : 
"The province of Louisiana ends on the north at a place 
called Detroit, between Lake Erie and Lake Huron. . . . 
On the south it is bounded by the Gulf of Mexico and 
runs east and west about two hundred leagues, to wit : from 
the Madeleine River, which is a miserable little stream 
emptying into the bay called St. Bernard by the Span- 
iards and St. Louis by the French, and which is conse- 
quently neither the Rio Panuco nor the Rio del Norte. 
. . . There are as yet no definite boundaries fixed in 
the distant lands lying on the east and west. It is, 
however, more easy to conjecture what would be our 
limits on the east, that is to say, towards Carolina, occu- 
pied by the English, than on the west, where the terri- 
tory is vast and unknown. . . . The Missouri has been 
ascended four hundred leagues without showing any Span- 
ish settlement, and it is only at five hundred leagues 
that one begins to hear of them from the savages who are 
at war with them. " To the southwest the French claimed 
the coast of the Gulf as far as La Salle's abandoned 
settlement at St. Bernard Bay, and the French priests 
claimed spiritual authority over all the tribes as far west 
as the Pacific, but France never established herself in 
this region farther west than the post of St. Jean Bap- 
tiste aux Natchitoches within the present limits of 
Louisiana. It is evident, however, that France intended 
at the first opportunity to seize Texas at least as far as 



1 Bienville to the Minister, Margry, vi, 181, 182. 

2 Margvy, vol. vi. 



^ 



DESCRIPTION OF TEE CEDED TERRITORY 199 

St. Bernard Bay and to capture the Spanish mines of 
New Mexico, and for that reason was willing that no 
definite boundary should be fixed by formal treaty. The 
attempts of St. Denis, La Harpe, and Belle Isle in Texas 
and the expedition of Bourgmont to the upper Missouri 
in 1722, ending finally in La Verendrye's laborious march 
to the Rocky Mountains in 1744, prove the intention of 
France to insinuate her way into the Spanish territory 
of the West as the English were doing along the eastern 
frontier of her own possessions. Destiny had prevented 
the fulfilling of her plans and had left to the United 
States this legacy of vague boundaries and vast possibilities. 

Even the comparatively small part of the territory / 
actually occupied by American garrisons was vast enough 
to cause uneasiness to the conservative East. From its 
source in the northwest to its mouth, the Mississippi was 
almost uninhabited. The long leagues of fertile soil along 
its banks were yet an almost pathless wilderness, known 
only to the wandering fur-traders, hunters, Indians, and 
priests. But along its lower coast, cultivation had begun 
to yield at least the promise of the wonderful prosperity 
which awaited the labor of new settlers. Already New 
Orleans was exporting yearly two hundred thousand 
pounds of tobacco, chiefly from the country about Natch- 
itoches, thirty-four thousand bales of cotton, four thou- 
sand hogsheads of sugar, and eight hundred hogsheads 
of molasses. Corn grew luxuriantly, and rice in the low- 
lands was now a staple. The cultivation of indigo had 
been extensively practiced by the first planters, but the 
soil and climate were not adapted to its growth, and 
Louisiana soon found that she could not compete with 
the West Indies in this industry. Hurricanes and the 
recent appearance of a destructive insect, moreover, had 
almost brought ruin to the planters of indigo. One of 
the most influential of these planters, Etienne de Bord, 
driven by necessity to meet the almost certain misfortune, 
resolved in 1794 to make a determined attempt to man- 



200 LOUISIANA 

ufacture sugar. Before that time sugar-cane had grown 
successfully in Louisiana, hut all attempts to granulate 
the juice and produce a marketahle quality of sugar had 
hitherto failed. Buying seed cane from Mendez and 
Solis, De Bore planted his fields in cane, and by his care 
and energy succeeded in raising an excellent crop and 
finally granulating the juice. Other planters at once fol- 
lowed his example; the futile attempts to raise indigo 
•were forever abandoned, and all the planters of lower 
Louisiana began the cultivation of sugar-cane. 

A new era in the agricultural history of the State had 
begun from this time. Life on the great plantations 
reached that state of patriarchal dignity and simplicity, 
combined with wealth and power, which gave to French 
Louisiana its peculiar character and charm to the visitor. 
For the country was still French, and Spanish custom, 
outside the town of New Orleans, had taken but little 
hold upon the real life of the people. Few Spanish set- 
tlers had come to the colony save those emigrants from 
the Canary Islands who had been established in St. 
Bernard Parish or within the vicinity of the capital 
— not a thousand in all. The people spoke French, 
and all the greater plantations were held under old 
French grants. It will be remembered that in the days of 
John Law the unhappy colony had been deluged with 
■wretched men and women, stolen, deceived, dragged from 
hospitals and jails and country by-roads, to populate the 
vast concessions granted to the aristocratic proprietors. 
But that time had passed, and that degenerate mass of 
humanity had been sifted and weeded out by disease and 
famine and by all the forces which produce and then de- 
stroy such social morbidity. They were useless to the 
colony, to themselves, and to the owners of the land 
grants. They could not or would not work either for 
themselves or their masters, and so they simply starved 
and sickened and died — as all useless things disappear. 
There were, it is true, many sturdy settlers of good, 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CEDED TERRITORY 201 

plain stock, like Law's Alsatians, but these people formed 
their own little farm, holdings and lived and worked for 
themselves. The proprietors of the larger grants, there- 
fore, had found themselves in great difficulty. They had 
pledged themselves to settle and cultivate these great 
tracts of wilderness; they were men who had never done 
manual labor or dreamed of doing it, and they could not 
use the wretched human material sent out for that pur- 
pose by the Eegent and the Company. Under the cir- 
cumstances there had been but one recourse — slavery. 
There had been those who foresaw, as did Father Charle- 
voix, the future menace of the black pest, and many an 
appeal was made to the blinded government to encourage 
the immigration of farmers, white laborers, and skilled 
mechanics ; but the government had been forced to take 
what seemed the shortest way of supporting Law's gigan- 
tic schemes, — black slaves were sent in by the shipload, 
and the planters eagerly took them. Sheer savages of 
the lowest type many of these negroes were, but under 
the wise slave laws of the French they had been more 
easily domesticated and humanized than could have been 
expected. They had made agriculture possible and pro- 
fitable ; their labor had enabled the aristocratic holder of 
land to lead in the Louisiana wilderness the same life 
of refinement to which his birth and breeding had adapted 
him, and the slave had become the most valuable of all 
property after the land itself. Needless to say, the mas- 
ter bred and cared for his slaves as valuable live-stock is 
bred and cared for to produce physical perfection. Need- 
less to say that the brutal savage, freed from his ignorant 
struggle with disease, superstitious excesses, the cruel 
power of the forces of nature over such as he, and from 
the slaughter and slavery of his fellow savages, became 
in a couple of generations what thousands of years of so- 
called freedom had not made him, and would never have 
made him, in his African jungles. The strong power of 
the law made him abandon more than half his savagery ; 



202 LOUISIANA 

he learned farming and the mechanic arts; having his 
master's physician and the nursing of his mistress or her 
trained subordinates, he ahnost ceased to depend upon his 
charms and fetiches in sickness ; and under the patient 
teaching of the priests and the UrsuHnes he had learned 
enough of the softer religion of his masters to tame and 
partially transform his own dark and terrible religion of 
fear, at least so long as his impressionable nature was re- 
strained by the direct control and personal responsibility 
of his master, an influence far stronger than official law, 
as both white and black learned when, in the next cen- 
tury, that restraining influence was removed and the slave 
was thrown again upon his own resources to struggle 
with incomprehensible laws and the power of a civilization 
as disastrous to him as the dangers of his native jungle. 

Upon the great plantations, the power of the master 
was well-nigh absolute, and the government outside the 
town was patriarchal. Slavery had undeniably its darker 
aspect, its evil influence upon many of the whites, its 
oft-painted cases of cruelty and oppression; but the 
nature of the laws compelling the master's care of his 
slaves and the high, chivalrous, and kindly character of 
the ruling class are enough to show that, beyond the 
fact of slavery itself and its abstract injustice, cases of 
wrong, of cruelty, of harshness were the exception and 
not the rule. The truly wonderful progress in the mate- 
rial well-being of the negro under slavery in America in 
contrast with his wretched condition under freedom in 
Africa and even with his present gloomy prospects under 
freedom in the United States, is the best proof that the 
negro himself was raised and not degraded, benefited 
and not wronged, by his Southern masters. 

Gayarre has given a complete picture of a typical 
Loifisiana plantation in the old days before American 
control, ^ a form of civilization unique in North America, 

1 "A Louisiana Sugar Plantation of the Old Regime," Harper^ s 
Magazine, March, 1887. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CEDED TERRITORY 203 

differing in many subtle ways from the plantation life 
in the Saxon slave States. It was the plantation of the 
historian's grandfather, Etienne de Bore, the patron 
saint ol Louisiana sugar-planters. The planter kept open 
house for every traveler, friend or stranger, that might 
pass the plantation. Class distinctions in that day were 
so distinctly marked that there was no danger of confu- 
sion, and the true aristocrat might permit himself a 
freedom and courtesy in his intercourse with men of a 
lower station which is impossible in these later and 
more democratic days. The table in Bore's great dining- 
room, and in fact that of every rich planter, was free 
to every white man traveling on the public road that 
passed his gates. As in the dining halls of the ancient 
Saxon thanes, there was a place at the board and a 
courteous welcome for every peddler, for the humblest 
wayfarer. There was no need for the gentleman of that 
day to enforce his superiority by exclusiveness; the 
very nature of that aristocratic civilization and that patri- 
archal life of mingled dignity and simplicity allowed a 
freedom and kindly courtesy between the recognized 
classes that is to-day absolutely impossible. 

The Bore plantation was typical of all the large plan- 
tations of sugar, cotton, indigo, and tobacco. The life 
was practically the same throughout the whole province, 
and the one word ''feudal," stripped, however, of its 
mediaeval barbaric associations, may well serve to char- 
acterize it. Throughout the parishes, the rich land -holders 
and their slaves formed the two classes economically 
most important. Under this civilization the intermediate 
class of free whites and free gens de coideur was of com- 
parative unimportance. The small amount of trade car- 
ried on by the native inhabitants had not yet produced 
a merchant class, and most of the mechanic arts, outside 
the town, were in the practice of trained slaves. Through- 
out the poorer pine-lands were already scattered families 
of squatters or small land-owners that later were known 



204 LOUISIANA 

as * ' poor white trash, " an anomalous class outside the 
interests of such a civilization as was built upon a foun- 
dation of slavery. 

Within the town of New Orleans itself, different con- 
ditions naturally prevailed. Being more in touch with 
Europe than the rest of the province, it had lost some of 
its primitive simplicity, and the more direct influence of 
the Spanish there had had more effect upon its inhabitants 
than upon those of the country. Nevertheless, the people 
of the town had remained essentially French, and, because 
of their isolation, had developed certain characteristics 
of their own, certain social and communal traits which 
have persisted, even through American influences, to the 
present day. New Orleans seems always to have absorbed 
its foreign governors and the strangers who came to dwell 
within its gates, and to have imparted to them its peculiar 
character and general manner of living. 

The Spaniards had made at first a brave attempt to 
establish the Spanish language and customs, but had 
finally been compelled to yield to the eff'ect of the stronger 
individuality of the local character ; and even the all- 
powerful church of Spain, even the unrelenting office of 
the Holy Inquisition, broke and yielded almost without 
a struggle to the subtle influences of the place. Mird 
reports that the people would not send their children to 
the public school established by the government for the 
teaching of Spanish and devotion to church and king. 
Scarcely thirty pupils had ever been assembled at one 
time, and finally the attendance had been reduced to six. 
Only in the courts of justice in the town was Spanish 
officially established, and even here a concurrent use of 
French and interpreters nullified any possible efi'ect that 
this legal necessity might have had upon a portion of the 
community. In the country, Spanish was not used even 
to this extent.^ 

Archbishop Penalvert, also, writing in 1795, has 

^ Mird's report of April 1, 1778. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CEDED TERRITORY 205 

grievous complaint to make of the people's refusal to 
accept the more rigid orthodoxy of the Spanish church. 
The grim but thwarted purpose of the ecclesiastics ap- 
pears in this disconsolate report. It is plain that the 
church would not have tolerated the admission of here- 
tics into the colony for the corruption of the faithful, 
but the weighty reasons of state to which Penal vert refers 
required that the trickling tide of American immigration 
that filtered in through the barriers of Spanish exclusive- 
ness should not be too rashly checked. Commercial rea- 
sons, reasons of necessity, of self-preservation, prevented 
the enforcement of laws that might provoke the danger- 
ous people of the States to hostility. Even a certain 
liberty of conscience had to be officially granted by the 
Spanish to these unquiet newcomers. 

But what prevented the grim church of Spain from 
taking such hold upon Louisiana as it had done upon 
the other colonies was not the then small influence of 
alien Americanism, but the very nature of the French 
Creoles themselves. They were a gay people, light- 
hearted and generous, independent, and impatient of 
restraint. In their nature there was a kindly tolerance 
which shrank from the cruel tyranny of such a priest- 
hood as dominated Spain and the Spanish colonies. 
Even the Spanish governors were imbued with this feel- 
ing and assisted the people in holding the ecclesiastical 
power within harmless bounds. The incident of the 
single attempt to establish the Holy Inquisition in 
Louisiana is typical of the whole silent struggle. In 
1789, the Spanish Capuchin Antonio de Sedella, under 
the new policy of the bigoted Carlos IV, was appointed 
ernissary of the Inquisition to Louisiana. The portrait 
of this priest which to-day remains in the cathedral 
shows such a figure as the popular mind would call 
typical of the agent of that relentless cult of fanatic 
cruelty, — a tall, gaunt figure, clad in the rough robe of 
the Capuchin Order, corded about the waist, the feet 



206 LOUISIANA 

bare except for meagre sandals, a frame full of the physi- 
cal power and the endurance which allows but little 
fellow-feeling for weakness, the round tonsured head, 
the wiry beard, and, above all, the expression of pitiless 
devotion to a stern conception of duty that almost glit- 
ters from the piercing eyes and seems to be symbolized 
in the very hook of that hawk-like nose. Padre Anto- 
nio had his agents and his implements of torture, and 
made his investigations with secrecy and caution. Ap- 
parently when his first victims had been chosen, he 
applied to Governor Mird for a file of soldiers that he 
might need some night in the near future. Mird sent 
the soldiers, not, however, to assist the cryptic horrors of 
the Holy Office. Incredible as it may seem, this officer 
of the king dared arrest the commissioned representa- 
tive of the dreaded, the all-powerful Inquisition, and 
pack him off to Spain with this bold justification of his 
act : " When I read the communication of that Capu- 
chin, I shuddered. His Majesty has ordered me to fos- 
ter the increase of population in this province, and to 
admit in it all those that would emigrate from the banks 
of those rivers which empty themselves into the Ohio. 
. . . The mere name of the Inquisition uttered in 
New Orleans would be sufficient, not only to check im- 
migration, which is successfully progressing, but would 
also be capable of driving away those who have recently 
come ; and I even fear that, in spite of my having sent 
out of the country Father Sedella, the most fatal con- 
sequences may ensue from the mere suspicion of the 
cause of his dismissal." Thus the Spanish ecclesias- 
tical power, like the Spanish civil power, was forced 
into a growth decidedly different from its original bent 
and purposes. Father Antonio Sedella himself, in later 
years, returned to Louisiana, a changed man, and re- 
mained for many years the most beloved of priests. 
When he died in 1829, the whole city mourned for him 
— not for the former Padre Antonio, but for the be- 



DESCRIPTION OF TEE CEDED TERRITORY 207 

loved "Pere Antoine," the hermit, the saint, the friend 
of the people. Many an aged negro has no other approx- 
imate record of the date of his or her birth beyond the 
recollection that it was Pere Antoine who sprinkled the 
water of baptism. To understand the love and reverence 
which the work of this strange man inspired especially 
among the humble, one has only to see some bent and 
shriveled negro woman standing before his picture, 
looking at it as if it had yet some miraculous spirit of 
life, and explaining with pride and reverence, ' ' Li bap- 
tise moin," as if the touch of those hands back in the 
dimness of half-obliterated memories had brought her 
poor life for an instant into actual contact with the 
supernatural, the divine. As it was with this Capuchin, 
so it was with the whole of Spanish life — at first re- 
jected, then accepted, and finally transformed and incor- 
porated in the composite nature of Louisiana. 

The French traveler Robin, who was in New Orleans 
at the time of the cession, has left a description ^ which 
enables us mentally to reconstruct, in a general way, the 
town of that day. Approaching the city from the rear 
and entering Bayou St. Jean from Lake Pontchartrain, 
one passed the little Spanish fort at its mouth and as- 
cended its shallow, almost currentless stream, winding 
through palmetto SAvamps and a drooping wilderness of 
cypress-trees, towards the town. The " land " on both 
sides of the bayou, except for occasional ridges, was but 
a tangled mass of rank, sinister vegetation struggling up 
out of the watery ooze from river and lake, a semi-liquid 
mass whose sullen stillness betrayed to the eye nothing 
of its ceaseless, creeping, imperceptible motion — the 
treacherous crawl of the swamp. Dull green cypress- 
trees with knotted and twisted branches mournfully 
draped and strangled with drooping masses of gray moss 
overhung the green water or stood starkly outlined in 
the depths of the marsh against the serene blue of the 

1 Voyage dans Vinterieur de la Louisiane, Paris, 1807 (tome ii). 



208 LOUISIANA 

sky. Here and there the swamp opened where, in the 
spring, vast fields of iris bloomed in purple beauty; 
among the sharp dagger points of the palmetto rose 
masses of swamp hibiscus, and the passion-flower clung 
to the few ridges of higher soil. The green waters of 
the bayou swarmed with reptiles ; alligators and turtles 
basked on jutting logs, and slimy moccasins hung coiled 
in the cane-brakes. A strange air of sadness, of oppres- 
sion, of decay overhung all this exuberance of poisonous 
life. But as one advanced towards the town and the 
great river, the soil, yearly enameled by its deposits of 
overflow, grew higher and clearer. Now houses began 
to appear along the banks of the bayou. Some of these 
were of wood, with galleries which appeared ' ' Chinese " 
to Kobin. Some were of brick, with Italian balconies. 
Some were surrounded with tall brick colonnades, in the 
style which yet remains. All were surrounded by closed 
gardens of flowers and embowered in groves of orange- 
trees. At a league's distance from the town, the bayou lost 
itself in the swamp, and the remainder of the journey was 
made by pirogue through the little canal which Gover- 
nor Carondelet had dug. A few straggling houses, and 
then appeared Carondelet' s little ramparts, surmounting 
his defensive ditch, and three of his miniature forts, — 
Fort Burgundy, Fort St. Ferdinand, and Fort St. Joseph, 
counting from left to right as one approached the town 
from the rear. These forts defended three of the angles 
of the pentagonal wall which guarded the old quarter. 
The two remaining angles, where the rampart touched 
the river, were occupied by Fort St. Charles on the 
lower corner and Fort St. Louis on the upper. These 
two forts were surrounded by walls eighteen feet thick, 
made of earth coated with brick. The wall about the 
town was a wooden palisade banked inside with the 
earth dug from the moat which encircled it. These de- 
fenses were puny, and General Collot, whose plans 
are here followed and who, it will ben remembered, was 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CEDED TERRITORY 209 

arrested, for his curiosity in these matters, writes : " We 
believe that Monsieur de Carondelet, when he adopted 
this bad system of defense, thought more of securing 
the obedience of the subjects of his Catholic Majesty 
than of providing a defense against the attack of a for- 
eign enemy, and, in this point of view, he may be said 
to have completely succeeded." 

What appears to have first struck the traveler Robin 
upon entering the town was the condition of the streets. 
The low level of the soil and the primitive state of the 
levees had forced the people to dig double ditches along 
the length of each street to carry off the water to the 
drainage canal and thence to the Bayou St. Jean ; but the 
canal had been allowed to become choked and its issue 
into the bayou so obstructed that the banked water 
had turned many streets into swamps and others into 
'' abysses," impassable even to vehicles, and the pedes- 
trian was forced to make long ddtours until he had mas- 
tered the topography of the town, if he happened to 
be a stranger. In acquiring this knowledge, he could 
get little assistance from the inhabitants, for the names 
of the streets existed only in the archives of the Cabildo, 
and the people designated the different quarters by the 
names of prominent residents. For the assistance of 
citizens in navigating the streets, or, as Robin seems to 
hint, for the betrayal of the unpracticed visitor, plank 
walks, or banquettes, were stretched before the houses ; 
but these, too, " had their dangers," for they were un- 
even and unsteady, planks were sometimes loose and 
often slippery, and some skill in equilibrium was re- 
quired to walk them without sliding off into the mud. 
Robin was told that, in view of the approaching trans- 
fer of the colony, the municipal government was un- 
willing to spend the money designed to repair the streets 
and maintain the drainage system. Nevertheless, the 
many handsome houses, especially along the river-front, 
with their attractive gardens, trees, and galleries, pre- 



210 LOUISIANA 

sented a pretty view to the eye. Especially attractive 
w^ere the Place d'Armes and the Cathedral, the Cahildo 
house, and the uncompleted convent for the Capuchins, 
facing an unobstructed view of the river. Just below 
the Place d'Armes, the picturesque arcades of the market 
w^ere alive with activity and brilliant with color. On the 
levee was a cool, tree-shaded promenade after sunset on 
summer evenings. 

The little town of eight or ten thousand inhabitants 
seemed to Robin to be full of activity. " Almost every 
one," he writes,^ "has some profession; for in the new 
world the towns have as yet few of those useless fami- 
lies who are proud of the crime of doing nothing. The 
universal desire of wealth makes them disdain no busi- 
ness that is lucrative. . . . The principal occupation is 
that of commerce, that is to say, of buying the cargoes 
of ships and selling them at wholesale or selling them 
upon commission. There are but few ship-owners and 
there is but little intelligent speculation. These mer- 
chants must be considered as mere brokers, or whole- 
sale dealers selling to the retail trade or to the distant 
planters, who lay in provisions once a year and ordinarily 
pay with their crops. . . . The retail merchants of the 
town buy upon three or four months' credit and sell at 
a profit of about twenty-five per cent. . . . The foreign 
traders and peddlers who are scattered about the distant 
plantations of the interior of Louisiana form a consider- 
able proportion of the retail merchants, receiving in pay- 
ment, almost exclusively, peltries or the products of 
agriculture. They have usually a year's credit to facili- 
tate their returns. Among the small dealers, the keepers 
of cabarets and the sellers of foodstuffs form a numer- 
ous class which, with good management, grows rapidly 
wealthy. The Catalans are the ones who more particu- 
larly take up this business, — active, industrious, frugal 
peo]3le, comparable to our Savoyards. The people have 
1 Tome ii, p. 75. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CEDED TERRITORY 211 

become so accustomed to see them adopt these trades 
in New Orleans that the caharet keeper and the grocer 
are known under the generic name ^' iiiarchands Cata- 
lans ^ . . . The baker's business is one of the most 
profitable. Many of them make considerable fortunes in 
a few years, and it is not at all astonishing. Kentucky 
and the other parts of the United States which commu- 
nicate with the Mississippi send their flour to New Or- 
leans. This flour is of varying quality and consequently 
of different prices, selling at from three dollars a bar- 
rel (weighing about one hundred and ninety pounds) 
to ten or twelve dollars. Sometimes the supply is so 
abundant in the city that the price there falls below its 
price at the place from which it comes. . . . Naviga- 
tion permits its transportation only from March to Sep- 
tember. Bakers who are far-sighted can lay in stock at 
small cost during certain seasons of the year, and they 
can make an additional profit by mixing flour of inferior 
quality with the superior. The price of bread is indeed 
taxed a picayune ^ per pound under the Spanish govern- 
ment ; but when the price of flour goes up, the weight 
of bread diminishes in proportion. . . . Many persons 
follow the occupation of butcher, either themselves or 
through their slaves. There is no country on earth 
where so much meat is consumed in proportion to the 
number of inhabitants. ... At every table they serve 
small pieces of bread and huge pieces of meat. The 
amount which the children of the people consume would 
startle a European ; they have good health, however, 
and grow large and vigorous. . . . Vegetables are 
found only on the tables of the wealthy, but meat is the 
main nourishment of all. Thus there are a good many 
butchers. . . . They kill only cows, for there is an im- 
pression in this country that their flesh is more delicate 
than that of steers." 

The great vice of the town was the almost universal 
1 About five cents. 



212 LOUISIANA 

love of gambling. At the many games of chance, cap- 
tains of vessels lost their salaries, ship-OAvners their 
cargoes, planters the money which they had gained from 
the sale of the year's crops. Many a planter, coming 
into town to buy his provisions for the next season, re- 
turned to his plantation, not only without a cent of his 
money, but burdened with debts to some of the swarm 
of Jewish money-lenders that had now begun to do a 
thriving business in the colony. E-obin attributes the 
prevalence of this habit to the fact that there was in the 
colony so little education, art, or intellectual activity ; 
that the men had nothing to talk about, and could pass 
their leisure only in the excitement of heavy play. For 
the same reason the women, though personally attrac- 
tive and of natural intelligence, appeared but little inter- 
esting to the French traveller, or, for that matter, to 
their husbands ; for their lives were occupied mainly with 
the supervision of their servants and in their exagger- 
ated and doting devotion ' to their children. The men, 
particularly the planters and those whose business of 
life, carried on by slaves, left them considerable leisure, 
tired of the monotonous society of the women of their 
own class and found their amusement in gambling and 
with the already large and dangerous class of quadroons. 
Of the attractions of the latter, many a foreign visitor 
has left glowing descriptions. Already the public balls 
arranged for them by enterprising managers were a chief 
institution of the town, and their gayety and contrast 
to the monotony of the man-of-leisure's existence gave 
them a dangerous attraction against which other influ- 
ences fought in vain. Their danger to the civilization 
of the whites was as insidious as it was ominous. Not 
the negro, but the mulatto, the quadroon, has always 
been the threatening factor in the race questions that 
grew out of African slavery. The class was still com- 
paratively small, and had not yet attained the extraordi- 
nary license acquired after Louisiana became a part of the 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CEDED TERRITORY 213 

United States, and the dangerous male element of the 
mulattoes was held in check until legal freedom and 
political license after the Civil War liberated its vin- 
dictive energies. Under the institution of slavery, the 
attack against the integrity of white civilization was 
made by the insidious influence of the lascivious hybrid 
woman -at the point of weakest resistance. In the un- 
compromising opposition of the white mother and wife 
of the upper classes lay the one assurance of the future 
purity of the race; to her, nature intrusted the impla- 
cable instinct of race preservation, and to her influence 
is due the pure blood of the present ruling class and 
the final complete subordination of the fatal hybrid in- 
fluence. 

Throughout the whole colony there was a peculiar 
lack of authority and control. The clergy had little or 
no influence upon the life or morals of the people, and 
were themselves lax in the matter of discipline and reg- 
ularity. Education was officially neglected, and there 
was no institution for the higher training of young men. 
The richer classes gave their sons European tutors, or 
sent them to Erance or Spain to the great universities 
or military schools, or, more frequently, to travel and 
acquire the polish and grace of manner that was even 
yet considered more essential to a gentleman than mental 
training of a more intellectual sort. As for the govern- 
ment, we have seen that it had been hampered in its 
Louisiana administration rather than aided by the code 
of laws provided by Spain. In this provision, the 
peculiar necessities of the people had been ignored and 
the relation of the colony to the rest of the Ameri- 
can continent disregarded. It has already been shown, 
in a general way, how necessity compelled the local 
officials and finally the Spanish court itself to disregard 
their own laws. These obstructive laws were allowed 
to remain upon the statute books, but the officials 
who should have enforced them were told to disregard 



214 LOUISIANA 

them at discretion. Naturally such an irregular prac- 
tice caused irregularities in the execution of the laws, 
and gave the officials a license of interpretation which 
had established a precedent for the total disregard 
of law by both officers of the government and the peo- 
ple. The judge administered justice more according to 
his individual conception than according to any code. 
The governor became a sort of benevolent autocrat. The 
legal conscience of the colony became as easy, as amiably 
complaisant, as the religious. The people, taught by 
necessity and precedent to disregard tax regulations, and 
especially external revenue laws, had been gradually 
worked into the belief that a national government was a 
grasping power whose decrees might be evaded or broken 
without disgrace or infraction of any moral law. The 
extent of this disregard of responsibility to the national 
government, natural as its growth had been under the 
European management, was not fully disclosed until the 
United States attempted to exercise some national control 
over the territory, and especially to stop the honorable 
and well-nigh universal habit of smuggling. The whole 
situation was typified a few years later by the final 
struggle made by the Lafittes against American innova- 
tions. 

To understand fully the rather vague terms upon 
which the United States entered into their possession of 
the new territory, and to appreciate the uneasiness with 
which some portions of the country viewed this sudden, 
unexpected acquisition of a foreign race and a vast, 
undefined extent of unknown land with the tremendous 
responsibilities and the inevitable change of national 
policy which it entailed, it is necessary to bear in mind 
the condition of the country at the time, and to remember 
that the whole affair was conducted and finally settled, 
not by any arbitrary decision or in the pursuance of any 
conscious, well-defined policy, but was the slowly wrought 
result of the operations of chance, or, as some might pre- 



DISPUTES IN CONGRESS OVER ADMISSION 215 

fer to say, of the gradual working out of the events of 
natural necessity. Distant States, such as Massachusetts 
and the rest of New England, were almost totally igno- 
rant of Louisiana and its people ; and what knowledge 
they had inclined them to doubt the practical possibility 
of absorbing an alien race without disaster to the United 
States. The West, at first from motives of mere personal 
necessity and self-preservation, and finally from a con- 
sciousness of the national importance of the matter, had 
long seen that the possession of the Mississippi Valley, or 
at least the control of the river's course and mouth by the 
United States, was not only imperative but inevitable; 
and the pressure of Southern and Western influence had 
forced the national government into the course of action 
which had resulted in the acquisition of the whole of 
Louisiana. It should be ever borne in mind that the 
United States were yet a loose confederacy of inde- 
pendent sovereignties, each jealous of its individual lib- 
erties and prerogatives and each unwilling to surrender 
too much power to a national, centralized government. 
Jefferson was a strong States' rights advocate ; and yet 
the circumstances of the Louisiana question had forced 
upon him an imperialistic policy and the assumption, 
according to the belief of some, of powers which the 
States had not delegated even to the national legislature, 
still less to the national executive. Nevertheless, he had 
done nothing more than accept provisionally the sudden, 
but not to be slighted, offer of France, merely to clinch 
the happy bargain until his action could be ratified by 
the government ; and when he submitted the treaty of ces- 
sion signed at Paris on April 30, 1803, by the American 
commissioners, to the special Congress convened by his 
■proclamation on October 17th, he had stated the case 
plainly in one of his forceful, direct messages and asked 
the Senate to ratify it. The Senate had dealt with the 
question by separate bills. The first bill, authorizing 
the President to take possession of the new territory, 



216 LOUISIANA 

had been passed by the Senate on October 26th, by a 
vote of 26 to 6, those dissenting being John Quincy 
Adams and Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, James 
Hillhouse and Uriah Tracy of Connecticut, Simeon 
Olcott and William Plumer of New Hampshire. On 
the 29th the House had passed a bill entitled, "An act 
authorizing the erection of a stock to the amount of 
eleven millions two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, 
for the purpose of carrying into effect the convention 
of the 30th of April, 1803, between the United States 
and the French Republic." This bill had come up 
before the Senate on November 2d, and brought forth 
opposition from Pickering of Massachusetts and White 
of Delaware. The opposition seemed to be willing that 
new territory be held subject to the United States, but 
objected to incorporating the inhabitants in the Union 
of States. The main argument advanced had been that 
a country as vast as the United States would then be, 
could not be governed centrally on account of the great 
diversity of interests between the sections and the lack 
of sympathy which distance would breed between them. 
The final secession of the West was predicted as the in- 
evitable result. In fact, this objection was well founded 
from a purely contemporary and conservative point of 
view, and the far-sighted hopes of the expansionist party 
might indeed have come to nought, had not science, 
born of necessity, found means to annihilate distance 
and time by means of the railroad and telegraph, and 
weld an even vaster extent of territory into a whole 
of common interests. Tracy of Connecticut maintained 
that the new territory could not constitutionally be ad- 
mitted as part of the United States without an amend- 
ment to the Constitution ratified by the universal con- 
sent of the States, acting individually. He expressed the 
fear that the admission of Louisiana would mean the 
"absorbing of the Northern States and rendering them 
as insignificant in the Union as they ought to be, if, by 



DISPUTES IN CONGRESS OVER ADMISSION 217 

their own consent, the new measure should be adopted." 
The necessity of holding New Orleans, and perhaps of 
ultimately acquiring the Floridas, was admitted ; but the 
New England senators hesitated at accepting territory 
beyond the Mississippi, urging constitutional reasons as 
the grounds of their objection. Breckenridge of Ken- 
tucky showed the logical fallacy of this position. Finally 
J. Q. Adams of Massachusetts, who had opposed the 
first bill, now rose in support of the present. He took 
the reasonable stand that, while in his opinion the pre- 
sent case was one for which the Constitution had not 
fully provided and which demanded an amendment or 
rather an addition to the Constitution, the treaty of 
cession signed at Paris was thereby not at all affected in 
its validity. "Nothing is more common," he said, "in 
the negotiations between nation and nation, than for a 
minister to agree to and sign articles beyond the extent 
of his powers. This is what your ministers, in the very 
case before you, have confessedly done. It is well known 
that their powers did not authorize them to conclude 
this treaty; but they acted for the benefit of their coun- 
try, and this House, by a large majority, has advised to 
the ratification of their proceedings. Suppose, then, not 
only that the ministers who signed, but the President 
and Senate who ratified this compact, have exceeded 
their powers. Nay, suppose even that the majority of 
States competent to amend the Constitution in other 
cases, could not amend it in this without exceeding their 
powers — and this is the extremest point to which any 
gentleman on this floor has extended his scruples — sup- 
pose all this, and there still remains in the country a 
power competent to adopt and sanction every part of 
our engagements, and to carry them entirely into execu- 
tion. For notwithstanding the objections and apprehen- 
sions of many individuals, of many wise, able, and excel- 
lent men in various parts of the Union, yet such is the 
public favor attending the transaction which commenced 



218 LOUISIANA 

by the negotiation of this treaty, and which, I hope, 
will terminate in our full, undisturbed, and undisputed 
possession of the ceded territory, that I firmly believe if 
an amendment to the Constitution, amply sufficient for 
the accomplishment of everything for which we have 
contracted, shall be proposed, as I think it ought, it will 
be adopted by the legislature of every State in the 
Union. We can therefore fulfill our part of the conven- 
tions, and this is all that France has a right to require 
of us. France can never have the right to come and say : 
/ am discharged from the obligations of this treaty, 
because your President and Senate, in ratifying it, 
exceeded their powers ; for this would be interfering in 
the internal arrangements of our government. It would 
be intermeddling in questions with which she has no 
concern, and which must be settled altogether by our- 
selves. The only question for France is, whether she 
has contracted with the department of our government 
authorized to make treaties ; and this being clear, her 
only right is to require that the conditions stipulated in 
our name be punctually and faithfully performed. I trust 
they will be so performed, and will cheerfully lend my 
hand to every act necessary for the purpose. For I con- 
sider the object as of the highest advantage to us ; and 
the gentleman from Kentucky himself (Mr. Br eck en- 
ridge), who has displayed with so much eloquence the 
immense importance to the Union of the possession of 
the ceded territory, cannot carry his ideas further on 
that subject than I do." The House bill to provide 
the funds necessary for the purchase of Louisiana then 
passed the Senate (November 3d) by a vote of twenty- 
six to five. 

In the House of Representatives there had also been 
some sectional opposition to the acceptance of the new 
territory. The debate was more important here than in 
the Senate in its effect upon the subsequent government 
of Louisiana. Aside from the objections already referred 



DISPUTES IN CONGRESS OVER ADMISSION 219 

to, it was asserted that the inhabitants of Louisiana, being 
of foreign birth, could not be made citizens of the United 
States without submitting to the constitutional regula- 
tions governing the naturalization of foreigners, notwith- 
standing the fact that the treaty implied that they were 
to be admitted at once to the rights of citizenship. In 
answer to this, John Randolph of Virginia rose and said : 
"I wish to know in what manner the subjects of Great 
Britain settled around our Western posts were admitted 
to the privilege of citizenship, — whether it was not done 
by treaty, and not in the mode prescribed by law? How 
did the people at Natchez become entitled to the rights 
of citizens ? Although born out of our allegiance, the 
moment our government was established over them, did 
they not possess of right a security of their lives and 
property ? Could they not demand trial by jury in case of 
criminal prosecution 1 When I speak of their acquiring 
the rights of citizens, T do not mean in the full extent in 
which they are enjoyed by citizens of any one of the 
particular States, since they possessed not the right of 
self-government, but those rights of personal liberty, of 
personal security and of property, which are among the 
dearest privileges of our citizens. A stipulation to incor- 
porate the ceded territory does not imply that we are 
bound even to admit them to the non-qualified enjoyment 
of the privileges of citizenship. It is a covenant to incor- 
porate them into the Union, not on the footing of the 
original States, or of States created under the Constitution, 
but to extend to them, according to the principles of the 
Constitution, the rights and immunities of citizens, being 
those rights and immunities of jury trial, liberty of con- 
science, etc., which every citizen may challenge, whether 
he be a citizen of an individual State, or of a territory 
subordinate to .and dependent on those States in their 
corporate capacity. . . . There is no stipulation, however, 
that they shall ever be formed into one or more States." 
It was also pointed out that the United States had ac- 



220 LOUISIANA 

quired by treaty and incorporated territory beyond the 
bounds of the original Thirteen States, and that a por- 
tion of that territory had once been a part of Louisiana, 
settled and largely occupied by the same people now to 
be incorporated. 

Objection was also made to article seven of the treaty 
of cession, which stipulated that for a period of twelve 
years the ships of both France and Spain should be 
admitted to the ports of the ceded territory under the 
same duties as were imposed upon American vessels. It 
was noted that the eighth section of the first article of 
the Constitution provided that : " All duties, imposts, 
and excises shall be uniform throughout the United 
States ; " and that the ninth section said that " No pre- 
ference shall be given, by any regulation of commerce, 
or revenue, to the ports of one State over another." 
Hence, as ships of France and Spain were liable to an 
extra tonnage in all the Atlantic ports, the acceptance of 
the stipulation in the treaty in regard to their privilege 
in the ports of the new territory was contrary to the 
Constitution. Against this objection, it was argued that 
this stipulation offered no constitutional difficulty, as the 
preference given to the vessels of France and Spain in 
this special instance was merely part of the price paid 
for the new territory; that no preference was given 
thereby to one State over another, since Louisiana was 
a territory and not a State; and that "a complete dis- 
cretion was left to the United States as to the time and 
manner of incorporating that territory into the Union, 
and that it was not necessary to do so within the twelve 
years during which France and Spain were to enjoy the 
privileges granted by the treaty." It was shown, more- 
over, that by the treaty of London a similar privilege 
had been granted the vessels of English colonies adjacent 
to the United States, and that the ports of New York on 
the Great Lakes were open to Canadian trade upon the 
same terms as were offered to citizens of the United States. 



DISPUTES IN CONGRESS OVER ADMISSION 221 

The House had then finally passed, by a vote of 85 
to 7, the bill for raising the required funds, as has al- 
ready been noted ; and had passed, by a vote of 89 to 
23, the Senate bill authorizing the President to take 
military possession of the ceded territory and to appoint 
a provisional government. 

The exact status which Louisiana was to hold in the 
E-epublic was thus left undecided, but the sentiment of 
both houses of the national legislature seemed against 
allowing it to have an independent government. The 
boundary question, likewise, was left undecided, and the 
already vehement protests of Spain on this subject were 
left for future settlement. That the United States in- 
tended to claim Mobile and West Florida as far as the 
Perdido River, on the grounds that these lands had been 
originally French, but that Spain intended to hold them 
upon equally valid grounds, was also certain. The most 
important step, however, had now been taken. As we 
have seen, the authorities had taken formal military pos- 
session of New Orleans and southern Louisiana. The 
precedent had finally been established for the growth of 
the country into a great nation. The policy of the gov- 
ernment had definitely taken the path that was to lead 
it steadily to the Pacific Ocean and the removal of the 
influence of Spain, its last enemy upon the continent of 
■North America. 



CHAPTEE X 

LOUISIANA A TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

THE BURR CONSPIRACY 

The abolition of the Cabildo left New Orleans without 
any government. The country parishes were likewise 
temporarily without authority. Governor Claiborne held 
for the present supreme control of the territory. While 
waiting for Congress to provide a scheme of local govern- 
ment, he appointed seven justices to form a provisional 
court of pleas in New Orleans. In its civil jurisdiction, 
this court was limited to cases that did not exceed three 
hundred dollars in the amount involved. Beyond this 
amount, cases could be appealed to the governor as final 
authority. 

On the 26th of March, 1804, Congress made the fol- 
lowing provisions for the territorial government of Lou- 
isiana. The former province was divided. That portion 
lying south of the 33d degree of latitude and the lower 
boundary of the Mississippi territory east of the river 
formed the Territory of Orleans. All the portion lying 
north of this line was called the District of Louisiana 
and annexed to the Territory of Indiana. Henceforward 
the present record may concern itself only with the Or- 
leans Territory, later the present State of Louisiana. The 
executive powers of the territory were vested solely in a 
governor appointed by the President of the United States. 
He was to act as commander of the militia ; he had the 
power of pardon find reprieve ; and he had the authority 
to appoint all civil and military officials within the terri- 
tory, save those named by the President. 



A TERRITORY, OF THE UNITED STATES 223 

A secretary was to be appointed by the President to 
record and preserve, under the governor's supervision, 
all executive papers, acts, and documents, to transmit 
exact copies of these with full reports every six months 
to the President, and to act for the governor in case of 
the latter' s disability. 

The legislative portion of the government was en- 
trusted to the governor and a Legislative Council of 
thirteen freeholders, selected by him. The laws passed by 
this body might be annulled by Congress, to which they 
had to be submitted by the governor. The governor had 
complete power to convene and dismiss this Council. 

The judicial powers lay in a Superior Court and such 
justices and inferior courts as might be established by 
the Legislative Council with the approval of Congress. 
The three judges of the Superior Court, the district 
attorney, the marshal, and the general officers of the 
militia were to be appointed by the President with the 
approval of the Senate. 

The importation of slaves from foreign countries to 
Louisiana was forbidden, and they might be brought in 
from the United States only by owners who came for set- 
tlement. 

The territory about Mobile, lying between the Pasca- 
goula and the Mobile rivers, was to be made a separate 
judicial district of the United States. For the present, 
however, this district was claimed by the Spaniards. 

In October, 1804, the following officers assumed au- 
thority under the act of Congress just mentioned : W. 
C. C. Claiborne, governor ; Brown, Secretary ; Belle- 
chasse. Bore, Cantrelle, Clark, Debuys, Dow, Jones, Ken- 
ner, Mongan, Poydras, Koman, Watkins, and Wikoff, 
as members of the Legislative Council ; Duponceau, 
Kirby, and Prevost as judges of the Superior Court ; 
Judge D. A. Hall was district judge of the United 
States ; Dickenson, district attorney ; and Le Breton 
d'Orgenois, marshal. 



224 LOUISIANA 

The new government met with the disfavor of the 
people. Four of the members of the Legislative Coun- 
cil named refused to receive their appointments, other 
members would not attend, and Claiborne obtained a 
quorum only in December by filling in some blank 
commissions with the names of persons who he knew 
would accept. The people were aroused by the indignity 
which they felt had been put upon them by the United 
States in not allowing them to elect their own legisla- 
ture, as was done in other territories. They were con- 
scious that they were as fully capable of complete self- 
government as any other portion of the country, and felt 
that a narrow race prejudice alone had induced Congress 
to put upon them a despotism more absolute than the 
Spanish had dreamed of. They claimed that there was 
no longer any appeal from the decision of the governor, 
whereas, under Spanish rule, appeal might be taken to 
the captain-general of Cuba and even to the Council 
of the Indies. Moreover, the new governor was almost 
ignorant of both French and Spanish, and had no sym- 
pathy with the feelings of the native inhabitants. The 
hardship of being compelled to use English in the 
courts, the innovation of trial by jury, farcical as it was 
for many years, were hard crosses to the people. They 
finally sent a committee of three influential men, Der- 
bigny, Destrehan, and Sauve, to Washington to ask that 
the Territory of Orleans be admitted to the Union as a 
State. This request was refused for the present, with the 
promise, however, that the territory would be admitted 
as soon as the population amounted to 60,000. One dis- 
tinct point, nevertheless, was gained by the petitioners. 
The people were to be allowed to elect a territorial legis- 
lature of twenty-five members, and this legislature was 
to select and send to the President the names of ten 
persons, from whom he would appoint a legislative coun- 
cil or senate of five members. 

Kevertheless, the general discontent was scarcely 



A TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 225 

lessened. Governor Claiborne distrusted the loyalty of 
the Creoles, and seems to have attributed their failure 
to appreciate all American institutions to ignorance and 
racial inferiority. This feeling was shared by many of 
the men whom he put into office and by the national 
government. The Creoles, on the other hand, accused 
the governor of reserve, of favoritism, of motives of per- 
sonal interest in his political methods. Such misun- 
derstandings were perhaps inevitable until time could 
bring about a partial fusion of the alien elements. The 
American newcomer, full as he was of young republican 
conceit, had to learn to appreciate the qualities of the 
civilization which was now old in Louisiana and to ad- 
just himself to the habits of a people not yet absorbed 
in the sole pursuit of business and money-getting and as 
yet uninitiated into the noble game of American politics. 
In truth, the Creoles had a bad foretaste of the Amer- 
ican lawyer and American politician. For example, 
Congress had passed an act declaring null and void all 
grants of crown lands made by the Spanish in Louisiana 
between the time of the treaty of Ildefonso and the 
transfer to France, with the exception of such lands as 
had been actually settled before December 20, 1803. 
The President had appointed registrars and recorders of 
land titles to investigate titles acquired under the Span- 
ish and French governments. He also appointed com- 
missioners who had authority to pass summary decision 
upon all land claims. The sharp practices of some of 
these men and of the lawyers who crowded into this 
fruitful field in hope of plunder gave the native Louisi- 
anians a practical insight into the business methods of 
their future competitors that was disheartening. 

As English had been established as the official lan- 
guage of the government and courts of justice, difficul- 
ties and discontent arose from this cause. Judges were 
compelled to understand both French and English, for 
the native population clung tenaciously to their mother 



k 



226 LOUISIANA 

tongue, refusing to learn the "foreign idiom," and the 
American newcomers showed the usual Saxon stubborn- 
ness in refusing to acquire the native language. While 
the struggle between the two races and languages con- 
tinued, confusion was the inevitable result. Trial by 
jury was established as a fundamental American insti- 
tution, and as jurors were chosen by lot, it often hap- 
pened that certain members could not understand a word 
of English while others were totally ignorant of French. 
Interpreters were therefore employed in every case to 
translate the testimony of witnesses and the judge's 
charge and rulings, and in many cases it was necessary 
to employ two lawyers on each side, one French and one 
English, so that the jury might have some opportunity 
of following the full argument of the counsel, which, of 
course, could not be hampered by the translation of the 
interpreter. Petitions, answers, citations, and writs were 
made in both languages. But the new jurors suffered 
much hardship by being compelled to sit and listen to 
long arguments in a language which was often incom- 
prehensible, and finally a unique and comfortable com- 
promise was effected. When an English-speaking lawyer 
rose to present his argument, the French-speaking por- 
tion of the jury were allowed to leave the court and 
walk and smoke in the corridors until the argument had 
been concluded. Then when a lawyer rose to address 
the court in French, the sheriff cried aloud : " Gentle- 
men of the jury who are outside, please come into court." 
The Creoles then filed into court and took their places, 
and the Anglo-Saxon jurors retired to enjoy a similar 
recess.* 

The final fusion of the two races, however, and the 
final combination of the essentials of the two types of 
civilization was but a question of time. The same nat- 
ural necessity which compelled the United States to 

1 " New Orleans Bench and Bar," by Charles Gayarrd, Harper^s 
Magazine, November, 1888. 



A TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 227 

absorb the Mississippi Valley likewise bound Louisiana 
in interest and sympathy to the rest of America, and the 
native-born Creole was not more slow to recognize this 
fact than was the Anglo-Saxon Westerner. The differ- 
ences between the two races were caused by the natural 
jarring oil diverse hereditary ideas at the first close con- 
tact, until a generation of residence had made the new- 
comer to Louisiana a citizen by ties of birth and until 
the Latin inhabitants had grown used to the new union 
with the other states and felt a community of interests. 
Some national danger or crisis was perhaps necessary to 
perfect this union, but before that day came, — though 
it came sooner than any expected, — the preparation 
for this reconciliation of alien elements was wrought by 
the new governor. Claiborne undoubtedly lacked the 
firm decision, the heavy hand, the sure grasp of author- 
ity that characterized O'Reilly, his Spanish predecessor 
in Louisiana's former process of reconstruction, but he 
possessed other qualities of vastly greater importance in 
the present instance. His personal dignity, generosity, 
and affability won the respect and admiration of his 
people after the first chill of his natural reserve had been 
removed. He himself gradually lost his first prejudices 
and early distrust of the Creoles in his intercourse with 
the open, impulsive people, and he found it natural to 
make concessions to hereditary and racial convictions and 
feelings to which his own race and training had made 
him a stranger. He forbore from interfering with the 
utterances of the public journals, even when they were 
hostile to him, and slowly, by his sheer personal worth 
as a man, won the respect and trust which the Louisi- 
anians could not feel for the government which he repre- 
sented or for the politicians who aspired to govern them 
as dependents. 

Under his direction and that of the Legislative Coun- 
cil the Territory of Orleans was divided into twelve 
cantons or counties, as they were first called, — Orleans, 



228 LOUISIANA 

German Coast, Acadia, Lafourche, Iberville, Pointe Cou- 
pee, Concordia, Attakapas, Opelousas, Rapides, Natchito- 
ches, and Ouachita. The lines between these divisions 
were so indefinite, however, and their size so varying and 
disproportionate, that in 1807 it was found necessary 
to redivide the territory into nineteen parts, now called 
"parishes," as the old Spanish ecclesiastical districts 
were used as the basis of division. Four parishes were 
later added to these from the West Florida territory, 
and further subdivision has taken place consistently 
with the growth of population and political convenience, 
"until to-day the parishes number fifty-nine. 

Thus the territorial government of Louisiana as an 
integral part of the United States was set in practical 
operation and the process of assimilation begun ; but the 
process was slow and hindered yet a while longer by 
the proximity of a hostile foreign power. The old Span- 
ish question had by no means been settled, for while 
the American government was establishing its forms and 
institutions in the Orleans Territory, Spain still re- 
tained its hold of West Florida, with garrisons at 
Baton Rouge and Natchez, and Casa Calvo still lingered 
in the new American territory, a source of suspicion and 
disquiet to the American officials. The Spaniards, with 
whom the dispute for the use of the river began, felt 
themselves duped throughout the whole transaction, and 
had not yet recognized the boundaries claimed by the 
United States as separating the Spanish provinces of the 
Floridas and Texas from the newly acquired lands of the 
United States. Nor had the seeds sown by the Spaniards 
and by Wilkinson and their other agents ceased to bear 
fruit of discord. On the western frontier of the Orleans 
Territory the Spanish troops held possession up to the 
town of Natchitoches, although the United States claimed 
that the act of cession included all this territory in the 
old French province of Louisiana. The United States 
claimed, and had a right to West Florida, including 



A TERRITORY OF TEE UNITED STATES 229 

Mobile, yet the Spaniards held that town and even re- 
tained, as has been said, the posts of Baton Rouge and 
Natchez. Jefferson was always for peace, and did not 
press the claims of the United States too urgently upon 
the Spaniards, as he felt that his country was not yet 
ready to take actual possession, for the position of the 
country in reference to England and France was far 
from settled ; trouble seemed almost certain, and it was 
known that neither France, Spain, nor England M-ould 
refuse any fortunate opportunity to gain a foothold in 
the Mississippi Valley. Nevertheless, though the exec- 
utive hesitated, many of the Westerners were eager to 
settle at once with the Spaniards, and some even more 
enthusiastic spirits, yet glowing with the spirit of the 
Kevolution, were eager to strike hands with the growing 
revolutionary party in the Spanish provinces themselves 
and set up the new Goddess of Liberty in Texas and 
Mexico. With these facts in mind, one is prepared to 
understand the spectacular appearance of Burr and his 
associates in its true light — as a belated aftermath of the 
old frontier disputes with Spain. It was a halcyon time 
for the filibuster. Especially in the province of West 
Florida was the opportunity ripe, for here the Span- 
iards held territory claimed by the United States, here a 
revolution had already been attempted and Anglo-Saxon 
residents arrested by Spanish troops ; and here the fili- 
buster and the revolutionist might do his work and feel 
sure of the ultimate support, of the people of the United 
States. Thus, in the spirit of antagonism against monarchy 
set in operation- by the American E,e volution, in the pe- 
culiar conditions of life on the western frontier, isolated 
from the rest of the confederacy and exposed to Spanish 
interference, and finally in the effect produced by the 
French revolution upon the colonies of Spain in Amer- 
ica, are found the causes of the scheme which entered 
the head of no less person than the Vice-President of the 
United States. 



230 LOUISIANA 

On the evening of July 25, 1805/ an elegant barge, 
manned by ten expert oarsmen, gay with colors, and 
equipped with sails, landed at the New Orleans levee, 
and Aaron Burr reached the end of his long journey 
through the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. He came 
assured of a hearty welcome, not only officially as ex- 
vice-president of the country, but personally through his 
own agreeeble and brilliant manners. He had also a pri- 
vate letter of introduction from General Wilkinson to 
Daniel Clark, one of the most influential citizens of the 
town. Burr was received with honor, dined, and enter- 
tained by Governor Claiborne, by Clark, and all the 
prominent men of the place, and his fascinating person- 
ality won him friends here as it did everywhere. On 
these grounds, Henry Adams ^ states that Burr found 
his chief allies in the Creoles of New Orleans and the 
members of the Mexican Association there. As a matter 
of fact, no motive of Burr's visit was publicly assigned 
beyond the general impression that he was seeking in- 
formation that might be useful in an attack upon Mexico 
in case war broke out with Spain, as then seemed 
inevitable. Moreover, in his conferences with private 
persons, Burr revealed no more of his plans than this. 
On these grounds he had been received everywhere with 
enthusiasm by those who wished war with Spain, by 
Gen. Andrew Jackson, and by prominent men in Louis- 
ville, Nashville, Lexington, Frankfort, and Cincinnati. 
The only persons who might at this time have charged 
him with treasonable designs against the United States 
were General Wilkinson, commander of the armies of the 
United States, and the English minister Merry at Phil- 
adelphia. Both of these were silent from motives of their 
own. In the likely event of war with Spain, New 
Orleans would be an important point, and in this city 
the Mexican Association had been formed for the pur- 

1 See the Orleans Gazette. 

2 History of the United States, vol. iii, p. 223. 



A TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 231 

pose of gathering information about that country to be 
used as soon as war should be declared. This association 
was composed of about three hundred members. Judge 
Workman and John Watkins, then mayor of New Orleans, 
were prominent in it. As it was generally understood 
that Burr was planning an attack upon the Spaniards, 
and as the impression had gotten abroad that he was 
secretly supported by the United States government, ha 
was received with enthusiasm by the Mexican Associa- 
tion and by all patriotic citizens, including Governor 
Claiborne. Burr was received as New Orleans has always 
received her guests of honor ; and so little was treason 
suspected that, when such rumors finally began to circulate 
after Burr's departure, Clark wrote to Wilkinson that the 
idea was so ridiculous that he should " amuse Mr. Burr 
with an account of it." ^ There was, however, a sinister 
side to Burr's project, and New Orleans was to feel the 
evil effects of it. 

Before setting out upon his western tour. Burr had 
proposed to the English minister Merry that the British 
government supply him with men, vessels, and especially 
money to aid his scheme. In order to get money from 
England, he told the minister that the Mississippi Valley 
could easily be detached from the Union and won by 
England. It is impossible to decide with absolute cer- 
tainty to what extent Burr was prepared to go in tliis 
dalliance with treason, but there is good reason to believe 
that he intended merely to obtain the money for his own 
projects against the Spanish province of Mexico and then 
to abandon his English backers.^ Merry was sanguine 
of success, and recommended that aid be given to Burr; 
but his government looked with shrewd skepticism upon 
the project and kept its money. Burr seems to have 
relied for the actual operation of his schemes chiefly 
upon General Wilkinson, then in Missouri as governor 

1 Wilkinson's Memoirs, app. xxxiii to vol. ii. 

2 W. F. McCaleb's The Aaron Burr Conspiracy, 



232 LOUISIANA 

of what was at that time called the District of Louisiana. 
He apparently soon abandoned the hope of aid from 
England, and relied for recruits chiefly upon the eager- 
ness of the Westerners to fight the Spanish. His full 
confidence was given to General Wilkinson, but to men 
like Jackson and Adair and to the Mexican Association 
in New Orleans his scheme was stated as a proposed 
conquest of Texas and Mexico as soon as war should be 
declared. To all the people of the country war seemed 
inevitable, and many were eager to join Burr in his 
campaign. There was so little secrecy in all this, that 
Merry complained, after Burr's return from his western 
tour, that he had been ^^ deceived " and the scheme made 
public. Nevertheless he again listened to Burr's seduc- 
tive talk, and again asked his government to advance 
money for the detachment of Louisiana from the United 
States, as Burr assured him that this could be easily 
accomplished. 

Meanwhile Jefferson, always eager to settle difficulties 
peaceably, had gotten a bill through Congress appropri- 
ating $2,000,000 to buy the Floridas from the Spanish. 
The prospect of an amicable settlement with Spain was 
by no means to Burr's taste, as he wished to conduct his 
expedition under sanction of the government, and this 
could be done only in the event of an actual declaration 
of war. There was a strong sentiment throughout the 
country in favor of war. Especially in Louisiana there 
was an eager party waiting for the opportunity to drive 
the Spaniards away from the frontiers and liberate Texas 
and even Mexico. Editor Bradford of the " Orleans 
Gazette " was especially earnest in his advocacy of war. 
Burr seems to have determined to push through his pro- 
ject of attacking Mexico at any hazard. By means of 
General Wilkinson, he hoped that a conflict might be 
precipitated on the unquiet western frontier, and that the 
temper of the people thus aroused would force the country 
into the war. In the mean time, however, it was necessary, 



A TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 233 

in view of Jefferson's negotiations, that the Spaniards 
should be deceived as to his intentions. He therefore 
approached the Spanish minister Yrujo and deceived 
him with arguments even more preposterous than those 
which he had served to Merry. The plan suggested by 
Burr to Yrujo included not only the secession of Louisi- 
ana but even the seizure of the President and the capture 
of the United States Treasury. Such a preposterous plan 
cannot have been intended by Burr to serve any other 
purpose than that of blinding the eyes of the Spanish 
minister against the real object of his undertaking. 

The Spanish officials of Mexico, however, had now 
become thoroughly apprehensive. Salcedo, then Cap- 
tain-General of the Internal provinces of Mexico, had 
received at Chihuahua a report that a force of '' Kentuck- 
ians" was being prepared to make an invasion of his 
territory.^ Antonio Cordero, governor of the Province 
of Texas, Francisco Viana stationed at Nacogdoches, and 
Morales at Pensacola, all had heard in some way of 
Burr's intended expedition, and all had forwarded re- 
ports. Troops were hurried forward and massed along 
the Sabine frontier of Orleans Territory in the spring 
and early summer of 1806. A detachment under Herrera 
even crossed the Sabine and approached Natchitoches 
within the Orleans Territory. 

At this crisis, the fourth of July was celebrated in 
New Orleans by both '' Americans ^' and Creoles with a 
patriotic enthusiasm which elicited a glowing report 
from Claiborne. Salutes were fired, fireworks let off, 
speeches were made, and the theatre produced a patri- 
otic play entitled " Washington, or the Liberty of the 
New World." Editor Bradford of the " Orleans Gazette " 
produced strong editorials full of patriotism and warlike 
enthusiasm. When the news was published in the ^' Ga- 
zette " that nine hundred Spaniards were encamped twelve 
miles from Natchitoches, where Major Porter was sta- 

1 McCaleb, quoting the Bexar Archives at San Antonio. 



234 LOUISIANA 

tioned (at Fort Claiborne) with but one hundred men, 
the governor, who chanced then to be on leave of ab- 
sence in the Mississippi Territory, issued a proclamation 
jointly with Cowles Meade, acting governor of that dis- 
trict, calling upon the people of both territories to 
volunteer and aid the troops in expelling the Spaniards. 
Claiborne requested, as he had been ordered from Wash- 
ington, that Herrera be told to withdraw beyond the 
Sabine ; but Colonel Cushing replied to Claiborne that 
this would be contrary to orders he had received from 
General Wilkinson. Claiborne, with good reason, began 
now to feel that ^^ all was not right.'' 

Wilkinson had been ordered by the government in 
May to go to the Sabine frontier, but still delayed at 
St. Louis. Burr was in correspondence with him, endeav- 
oring to arrange a programme by which Wilkinson 
should provoke hostilities with the Spaniards and thus 
give an excuse for the starting of Burr's expedition. On 
July 29, 1806, Burr wrote his famous letter to Wilkin- 
son, stating that his detachment would be ready on the 
Ohio by November 1 ; that Wilkinson would be second 
only to himself ; that English aid had been secured ; that 
he would move down the Ohio and Mississippi with 
five hundred or one thousand men, join Wilkinson at 
Natchez in December, and perhaps capture Baton Eouge 
from the Spanish. This was, of course, contingent upon 
Wilkinson's success in precipitating a fight with the 
Spaniards. No mention was made of detaching Louisiana 
from the United States or of attacking New Orleans. 
This letter, however, was delayed and did not reach 
Wilkinson until he was on the Sabine and a new aspect of 
circumstances had produced in him a change of feeling. 

Meanwhile, ere yet the general had appeared, Her- 
rera became uneasy at the preparations being made 
by Claiborne and Meade, and drew back fifty miles from 
Natchitoches to wait for reinforcements, though he was 
reported to have one thousand men with him. The 



A TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 235 

people of Orleans Territory were eager to be called into 
service, and Bradford's call for volunteers in September 
in the " Gazette " met enthusiastic response. 

General Wilkinson joined Claiborne on the frontier in 
September, 1806. A militia force had been gathered 
there by the governor, but General Wilkinson announced 
that he would not order an advance until he had " pene- 
trated the designs of the Spaniard " or " found him deaf 
to the solemn appeal which I shall make to his under- 
standing, his interest, and his duty." From the moment 
of his arrival, however, he did all in his power to pro- 
duce a vague impression that a great plot against the very 
existence of the nation was afoot and that the govern- 
ment rested over a mine that might be expected to blow 
up at any time. He ordered that all the troops in New 
Orleans be concentrated on the frontier under his own 
personal command. Claiborne promised four hundred 
men, but refused to leave New Orleans defenseless 
against attacks from Florida. 

The governor returned to New Orleans in October, 
leaving the general to pursue his own designs. Wilkin- 
son then sent word to Herrera as well as to Governor 
Cordero that the Spanish troops must be withdrawn. 
Cordero replied that he was compelled to obey orders 
and therefore could make no final move till he should 
have received orders from Salcedo. Herrera, however, 
feeling his weakness, withdrew from Bayou Pierre and 
crossed the Sabine to the Texas side. 

It seems that General Wilkinson now saw that there 
was but little chance of provoking a fight, and his inter- 
est in Burr's projects began to wane. He began a change 
of tactics very different from his first martial utterances 
and more in accord with his old relations with the Span- 
iards in the days before American possession. He began 
to pave the way for a profitable intercourse with them, 
and, at the same time, in order to increase the impor- 
tance of his entirely fictitious services to the country, 



236 LOUISIANA 

assiduously spread reports of conspiracy and danger to the 
Union. 

He now had a free hand on the frontier, and, while 
writing that he would continue actively to ^' wipe off the 
stigma which cavilers may attach to the Spaniards' re- 
possession of the country from which we had driven 
them," and that he would march at once to the Sabine 
and hold the country, he had no intention of doing such 
a thing, for he wrote to Governor Cordero at Nacog- 
doches, *^ I shall dispatch my troops to the Sabine, and 
I hope you will interpret the motive only as signify- 
ing the pretensions of the United States to the east bank 
of the river, and not as an act of hostility against the 
Spanish troops." Even after this warlike message he 
delayed to move forward, and on October 8, Swartwout 
arrived with Burr's belated letter of July 29. The gen- 
eral had now determined to betray Burr and magnify 
both the crime and the danger for his own greater glory 
and gain. Yet for two reasons he seems to have hesitated 
to report the matter at once to Jefferson, — first, because 
Burr's little party would be easily and immediately 
stopped and the whole supposed huge conspiracy col- 
lapse like a pricked bubble ; and second, because there 
was yet a faint chance of war and yet a bare possibility 
that in that event Burr might be able to raise a respec- 
table force. In this case, the general wished to be in a 
condition to return to Burr and share in his enterprise 
if it should offer any prospects of success. Thus, while 
matters remained so undecided, he regulated his actions 
so as to be able to turn to the side which would ulti- 
mately promise him most advantage, and he skillfully 
left ways open by which he might join either the Span- 
iards or Burr and yet keep his credit and favor with 
President Jefferson. He therefore waited to write to 
Jefferson until October 20, and then he employed only 
the most ambiguous terms. He claimed not to know the 
names of the conspirators in the plot at which he hinted 



A TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 237 

darkly, but predicted colossal and inexpressible dangers 
which threatened to involve the whole country in ruin ; 
he nevertheless expressed the confident belief that he 
could win over the associates and check the plot. While 
this message was on its way to alarm the President, 
General Wilkinson told Colonel Gushing, on charge of 
utter secrecy, that a gigantic plot was on foot, and left 
the colonel's imagination to supply the details. He 
wrote to Colonel Freeman, commanding at New Orleans, 
hinting at direful dangers, and urging him to fortify the 
place at once, but to preserve the utmost secrecy. At 
last, on October 29, he marched down to the Sabine 
without meeting a Spaniard. There he stopped and 
wrote letters to Cordero and Herrera suggesting the 
terms of a peculiar treaty by which each side, without 
yielding any of its claims, was to remain, the one at 
!N'acogdoches, the other at Natchitoches, leaving the in- 
tervening territory neutral and unoccupied by either 
party. The Spaniards were not to cross the Sabine, and 
the United States troops were to remain east of the 
Arroyo Hondo (Bayou Funda). Cordero would enter 
into no agreement, even though Wilkinson thus gener- 
ously left vacant, contrary to his orders, the territory 
claimed by the United States. Herrera, however, was 
more amenable, and these two unauthorized agents be- 
tween them patched up the Neutral Ground Treaty, 
which was a source of trouble and annoyance to the 
United States at a later time. The general then read 
the treaty to the troops, announced that their object 
had been obtained, praised them all generously, and 
ordered them back to Natchitoches. He did not an- 
nounce, however, that the Americans were not to go be- 
yond Bayou Funda. The Louisiana volunteers were of 
course disappointed at this unexpected end of the cam- 
paign, but their minds were soon occupied by the rumors 
which the general set in circulation and the surmises 
which his air of mystery caused to be made. He wrote 



238 LOUISIANA 

to Colonel Gushing: "By letters found here the plot 
thickens ; yet all but those concerned sleep profoundly. 
My God ! what a situation has our country reached ! 
Let us save it if we can! " And again : "Hurry, hurry 
after me, and if necessary let us be buried together in 
the ruins of the place we shall defend." He urged Free- 
man to hasten the work on the feeble defenses of New 
Orleans, but to remain "silent as the grave." 

General Wilkinson then set out himself for Kew 
Orleans by way of Natchez. He reached this place on 
November 11 and joined Major Estevan Minor, a Span- 
ish officer still there under his royal commission. From 
Natchez he wrote to Governor Claiborne:^ ''You are 
surrounded by dangers of which you dream not, and the 
destruction of the American government is seriously 
menaced. The storm will probably burst in New Or- 
leans, where I shall meet it and triumph or perish. . . . 
I have little confidence in your militia, yet I trust we 
may find a few patriotic spirits among them." Upon 
Claiborne, also, he urged unutterable secrecy, and yet 
nothing would have disappointed the general more than 
that a rumor of. this secret should not get abroad. He 
was assiduous that it should, for he whispered his secret 
in every ear. He wrote again to President Jefl'erson : ^ 
"Many circumstances have intervened since my last, 
confirmatory of the information received, and demonstra- 
tive of a deep, dark, and wicked conspiracy, . . . em- 
bracing the young and the old, the Democrat and the 
Federalist, the native and the foreigner, the patriot of 
'76 and the exotic of yesterday, the opulent and the 
needy, the ins and the outs ; and I fear it will receive 
strong support in New Orleans. . . . You will perceive 
on inquiry that my means are greatly deficient, but may 
rest satisfied that nothing shall be omitted which can 
be accomplished by indefatigable industry, incessant 

1 Wilkinson's Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 328. 

2 Memoirs, vol. ii, App. C. 



A TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 239 

vigilance, and hardy courage ; and I gasconade not when 
T tell you that, in such a cause, I shall glory to give my 
life to the service of my country ; for I verily believe 
that such an event is probable ; because, should 7000 
men descend from the Ohio, and this is the calculation, 
they will bring with them the sympathies and good 
wishes of that country. . . . With my handful of vet- 
erans, however gallant, it is improbable that I shall be 
able to withstand such a disparity of numbers ; and it 
would seem that we must be sacrificed unless you should 
be able to succor me seasonably with two thousand 
men and a naval armament. ... To give effect to my 
military arrangements it is absolutely indispensable that 
New Orleans and its environs be placed under martial 
law. . . . Were my intentions exposed, there are more 
than three desperate enthusiasts in New Orleans who 
would seek my life ; and though I may be able to smile 
at danger in open conflict, I will confess I dread the 
stroke of the assassin because it cannot confer an honor- 
able death." 

Meanwhile Burr had remained quietly in the Ohio 
country waiting for war with Spain to begin, and of 
course unable to organize his party. As a result of Wil- 
kinson's efforts, wild rumors were afloat. A Kentucky 
paper, '^ The Western World," through its editors Wood 
and Street, attempted to fasten the charge of treason 
upon Burr as the satanic individual at the bottom of 
the plot. Charges had been brought against him in 
Frankfort during November, 1806 ; he had voluntarily 
appeared, and the charges had been dismissed as ground- 
less. While General Wilkinson was making his extraor- 
dinary efforts to defend New Orleans, Burr was quietly 
in Cincinnati. Again, in November, a grand jury at 
Frankfort made inquiry into Burr's conduct. No charge 
of treason was made, but it was announced that at the 
trial Wood and Street would produce proofs that should 
convict him of this crime. When the editors were actu- 



240 LOUISIANA 

ally summoned, however, each acknowledged that he 
had no information beyond the current rumors, and 
"Wood finally stated that he had become convinced that 
Burr had no treasonable intention. The jury returned 
the indictment, "No true bill." Meanwhile the Presi- 
dent and the Cabinet, moved by General Wilkinson's 
former letters, had warned the commanders of the west- 
ern militia to be on their guard in case any actual move 
should be made by the filibusters, and on November 27, 
1806, JefTerson issued his proclamation ordering the dis- 
persal of Burr's party on the Ohio and forbidding citi- 
zens of the United States from joining it. No charge of 
treason was made, for no act of treason had been com- 
mitted ; but the proclamation threw the West into a 
panic, for it lent color to Wilkinson's reports of conspir- 
acy. The President also gave Wilkinson full authority 
over New Orleans. 
• Wilkinson had left Natchez for New Orleans on No- 
vember 25, but before leaving he had accomplished an 
interesting piece of business. From Estevan Minor he 
obtained passports for Walter Burling, his aide-de-camp, 
to go to Mexico, ostensibly to purchase mules and carry 
a letter of importance to the viceroy, but also to survey 
the road and gather information that might be useful in 
any turn of events. The letter ^ which the Viceroy Itur- 
rigaray wrote to Minister Cevallos, reporting the matter, 
gives the contents of General Wilkinson's communica- 
tion, which were a pretended revelation of Burr's con- 
templated attacks, assurances that the writer was risking 
his very "life, fame, and fortune to save, or at least 
protect" Mexico from this danger, and demands for 
money amounting to $111,000. Incidentally the United 
States government paid the expenses of this triple-pur- 
posed mission.^ 

1 McCaleb, The Aaron Burr Conspiracy, pp. 168, 169. 

2 The viceroy refused to consider these propositions, and sent Bur- 
ling back by schooner to New Orleans. 



A TERRITORY OF TEE UNITED STATES 241 

When General Wilkinson returned to New Orleans 
in ISTovember, he found the city in a proper state of 
alarm and uncertainty, but ready to exhibit an active 
loyalty that would have interfered disagreeably with the 
truth of the insinuations which he had made against 
their patriotism to the President. The hasty prepara- 
tions for strengthening the city, the utter secrecy with 
which the work had been conducted, and the air of 
gloomy mystery which the military and even the gov- 
ernor had caught from the general,^ all conspired to put 
the minds of the people in a state of uncertainty and 
apprehension that furnished fruitful soil for the sowing 
of rumors. In order to prevent this feeling from result- 
ing in any public expression that would exhibit too 
plainly and quickly the readiness of the people to take 
arms against any enemy of the government, the general 
endeavored to persuade Governor Claiborne not to order 
the militia to be in readiness for service. On the other 
hand, he filled the governor's ears with hints of plots 
in the city and negro uprisings in the parishes, in order 
to prepare his mind for the proclamation of martial rule 
and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. Clai- 
borne's apprehensive nature was thoroughly alarmed. He 
busied himself with the preparations suggested by the 
general, and expressed his fears to Acting Governor 
Cowles Meade of Mississippi in a letter of warning which 
received the unexpected reply that the loyalty of the peo- 
ple could be relied upon to repel any danger that might 
threaten, and that, if there were in truth any such con- 
spiracy as to require such elaborate preparations for de- 
fense, General Wilkinson himself was at the bottom of it. 
This premature expression of common sense got Meade his 
dismissal from office by Governor Williams and General 
Wilkinson, on the grounds of complicity in the conspiracy. 
On December 9, 1806, Governor Claiborne, at the sugges- 
tion of General Wilkinson, convened the New Orleans 
1 Orleans Gazette, March 31, 1807. 



242 LOUISIANA 

Chamber of Commerce. Wilkinson addressed the meeting. 
He announced that Burr intended to immediately attack 
New Orleans with two thousand men, use the place as a 
base of supplies, conquer Mexico, and then separate the 
Western States from the rest of the Union. He said that 
armed but disguised vessels were to come up the river 
from the Gulf to aid in the capture of the city, and that, 
to guard against this danger, the Chamber of Commerce 
should donate money to equip a force on the river that 
might act as a defense and attack Burr before he reached 
Natchez. The general and the governor withdrew from 
the meeting after this disconcerting announcement, and 
the Chamber proceeded to declare an embargo and agreed 
to release any sailor from their merchant vessels who 
would enlist in the naval force suggested by the general. 
The mysterious danger which had so long caused un- 
easiness and alarm was at last made public, and the feel- 
ing of relief was immediate. Wilkinson's secrecy had 
been for two months in ostentatious travail, and, like 
Horace's mountain, brought forth a mouse. There were 
nine hundred men fully armed in the city besides the 
volunteer force that was ready for service at a moment's 
notice, and, moreover, all the citizens not members of any 
regularly organized company had pledged themselves to 
be " ready when called upon by the constituted authori- 
ties to support the government of the United States." 
The huge conspiracy, which, in the general state of vague 
alarm and uncertainty, had assumed vast proportions, 
was now shrunk, by the general's announcement, to a 
possible force of two thousand, of whose existence there 
was still no visible evidence. Even Governor Claiborne 
was disconcerted by the expression of sudden relief which 
the announcement had caused, for he writes : " Many good 
disposed citizens do not appear to consider the danger 
considerable, and there are others who (perhaps from 
wicked intentions) endeavor to turn our preparations 
into ridicule j but these things have no effect on my 



A TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 243 

mind." The merchants began to regret having consented 
to part with their sailors, and did not furnish them. Gen- 
eral Wilkinson urged Claiborne to impress the sailors, 
and, on December 14, 1806, when he found that the 
governor balked at the last leap, took matters arbitrarily 
in his own hands and placed the city under military 
rule. On general suspicion he arrested Bollman, Swart- 
wout, and Ogden. The two former were sent at once to 
Washington, and of course could not be reached when 
writs of habeas corpus were obtained in their behalf. 
Judge Workman of the county of Orleans granted a 
similar writ in favor of Ogden and obtained his release, 
but Wilkinson had him rearrested together with a Mr. 
Alexander and sent them to Fort St. Philip. Alexander 
was later sent on to Washington without sufficient cloth- 
ing to protect him from the cold.^ John Williamson and 
Edward Livingston applied to Judge Workman in be- 
half of Alexander, Wilkinson refused to recognize the 
writs issued or to reveal where he had secreted his pris- 
oner. Judges Hall, Mathews, and Workman now asked 
Claiborne whether he meant to assist the civil authorities 
or Wilkinson. The governor, however, remained in 
helpless indecision. Livingston now moved for an at- 
tachment against Wilkinson. Judge Workman appealed 
twice in vain to Claiborne, and then on January 12, 
1807, adjourned the court of the county of Orleans sine 
die and resigned his office. General Wilkinson de- 
nounced Judge Workman as a partisan of Burr, had him 
arrested, and sent him to Natchez. He also arrested 
Bradford, the editor of the " Gazette," but released him. 
On January 14, General Adair came to New Orleans 
in ill health and put up at a lodging-house. Wilkinson 
sent one hundred and jfifty men to the house, seized him, 
paraded him through the streets sick as he was, put him 
on a vessel, and sent him north. ^ Burr, meanwhile, was at 

1 Orleans Gazette, April 17 and March 31, 1807. 

2 See the account in the Gazette of April 3, 1807. 



244 LOUISIANA 

Nashville with two flathoats, waiting for enough men to go 
down the river and settle upon the Washita lands which 
he had purchased from the old Bastrop grant. 

New Orleans had now completely forgotten the con- 
spiracy, in the excitement and indignation caused by 
General Wilkinson's acts. The embargo enforced on the 
port since December 9, caused such unnecessary loss of 
business and produced such general discontent that it 
was removed, but a strict watch was kept along the 
river, and armed vessels were stationed at Natchez to 
destroy Burr's flotilla of flathoats if it should appear. 

On January 12, 1807, the Legislative Council met. 
Claiborne in his message presented a history of the 
conspiracy and still expressed his belief that there were 
traitors in the city. General Wilkinson's oft-told tales 
were repeated. The Legislative Council replied by de- 
claring their loyalty to the United States, repudiating 
the idea of disloyalty in the territory, expressing general 
skepticism towards the conspiracy itself, and stating 
boldly in behalf of the people, " there is no perfidy, no 
treason to be apprehended from them by the general 
government. If they do not yet possess all the privileges 
enjoyed by the American citizen, they already set so 
much value upon the rights which have been granted 
to them, that their late privation of those rights in the 
present stormy circumstances has created among them 
the most serious alarms." They also refused to suspend 
the writ of habeas corpus, and declared their intention 
of investigating Wilkinson's " extraordinary measures." 
They drew up also a memorial ^ to Congress, giving a 
history of Wilkinson's acts. ^' Though nothing can jus- 
tify, yet circumstances of extreme danger in the moment 
of invasion, during the suspension of civil authority, 
might excuse some of these violent measures. But here 
no foreign enemy or open domestic foe was then, or has 
yet been proved to have been within any perilous dis- 
1 See Gazette, March 20, 1807. 



A TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 245 

tance of this city, or that treason lurked within our 
walls." General Wilkinson's acts were characterized as 
" too notorious to be denied, too illegal to be justified, 
too wanton to be excused." 

. The farce, so far as General Wilkinson was concerned, 
was complete when, on January 14, 1807, he announced 
that he would ascend the river and crush Burr's advance- 
guard of two thousand men before it could reach Natchez. 
He did not know that while the council was in session, 
Burr and the remnant of his party were at Bayou Pierre. 
Burr's fifteen flatboats and provisions had been seized 
on the Muskingum on December 6, and Blennerhasset's 
Island had been raided a few days later to stop what 
was considered the preparations for a filibustering expe- 
dition against the Spaniards. Burr had long since aban- 
doned his Mexican scheme, in view of the prospect of 
agreement between the United States and Spain, and on 
December 22 he had set out with a few hired men in two 
flatboats, intending to go to his Washita lands. On the 
way he had been joined by Blennerhasset and about sixty 
men, a greater number than he had expected, for he had 
been compelled to order additional supplies. There was 
so little secrecy in his movements that he offered to take 
messages for the commander of Fort Massae down the 
river, and an examination of his boats by the military 
disclosed nothing of a suspicious nature. A nephew of 
the wife of General Jackson went with the party and 
carried a letter of introduction from General Jackson to 
Governor Claiborne. This was the dreaded armament 
against which General Wilkinson's heroic efforts had 
been directed. When the little fleet of ten flatboats 
reached the Mississippi Territory, they met the evidences 
of the terror which Wilkinson had so successfully aroused 
there. When Wilkinson received word that Burr was at 
Bayou Pierre, he beseeched Governor Williams to arrest 
him. Cowles Meade had the hardihood to visit Burr at 
Bayou Pierre and induce him to go to Washington, the 



246 LOUISIANA 

capital of the Mississippi Territory, to answer the charges 
about to be brought against him before a grand jury. 
Burr was tried and declared innocent. Nevertheless, Gov- 
ernor Williams ordered him arrested a second time. 
Wilkinson was of course interested that Burr should not 
escape, and there is considerable reason to believe that he 
had secret officers under orders to take Burr and even to 
kill him if he offered resistance.^ Burr, seeing that no 
justice would be done him, attempted to escape. He was 
arrested near Fort Stoddart, tried finally at Bichmond, 
and acquitted of the charge of treason. 

Meanwhile Wilkinson's arrests in New Orleans had 
attracted the attention of the government at Washington, 
and drew upon him the censure of Congress. The prison- 
ers whom he had sent north were immediately released, 
and one of them. General Adair, recovered twenty-five 
hundred dollars damages from him for false imprison- 
ment. In New Orleans the opposition to the general 
grew so strong after the whole fiasco had been exposed, 
that he felt called upon to defend himself to the Presi- 
dent by slandering the people, and begged that he might 
not be left longer to suffer the ingratitude of the treach- 
erous people whom he had defended. Governor Claiborne 
and President Jefferson, likewise, came in for a share of 
the ridicule which General Wilkinson's course had pro- 
voked, for both of these had been the dupes of his fertile 
imagination. 

Preed at last from the haunting spectre of conspiracy 
and the incubus of military despotism, the Territory of 
Orleans resumed the work of forming its government. 
In 1806, James Brown and Moreau Lislet had been ap- 
pointed by the Legislative Council to prepare the draft 
of a civil code. The delicate task of bringing the mass 
of ancient Prench and Spanish law into accord with the 
institutions of the United States was accomplished, at 
least in outline, when Brown and Lislet, in 1808, re- 
1 McCaleb, Aaron Burr Conspiracy, pp. 274, 275. 



A TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 247 

ported their " Digest of the civil laws now in force in 
the Territory of Orleans, with alterations and amend- 
ments adapted to the present form of government." ^ 
This code, based upon that which Napoleon had promul- 
gated in 1804, was later revised by Livingston, Derbigny, 
and Lislet, and adopted in 1825 as the Civil Code of 
Louisiana. 

Yet, in the midst of this work of adaptation and the 
peaceful formation of sound internal regulation, unquiet- 
ness and disorder troubled the borders. The Spaniards 
had not yet been settled with, and the exact boundaries 
had not been determined. The United States claimed, 
it must be repeated, that the act of cession by which they 
acquired the whole province called Louisiana included 
all the territory which, under that name, had originally 
belonged to France and had been ceded by that country, 
through the treaties of 1763-64, to Spain. The western 
line had been left purposely vague, as has already been 
noted. The eastern line was also not definitely marked, 
but the French had colonized and held West Florida, 
including the town of Mobile, up to the Perdido River. 
Beyond this point lay the undoubtedly Spanish posses- 
sions of East Florida. Upon such grounds the United 
States based their claim to West Florida. The territory 
in question, however, had been transferred by Spain to 
Great Britain in return for Havana, and had been held 
by that power until the American Bevolution, when the 
Spaniards of Louisiana under Galvez had recovered 
Baton Rouge, Mobile, Pensacola, and the whole country 
which they had originally settled as well as the country 
colonized but abandoned by France. When Napoleon 
transferred to the United States all the claims of France 
to its original territory in North America, Spain retained 
possession, not only of its original colonies of East Flor- 
ida, but West Florida as well, that is to say, all that 
Galvez had won from Great Britain and had subse- 
1 See Judge Martin's History of Louisiana. 



248 LOUISIANA 

quently been held as Spanish territory, roughly speaking 
the land lying between the Perdido and the Mississippi 
and including Baton Kouge and Mobile. Jefferson's con- 
ciliatory policy had prevented him from attempting to 
take possession of this territory, though claimed by the 
United States, and the Spaniards had been allowed to 
remain. Governor Folch, stationed at Pensacola, ruled 
both the Floridas for the Spaniards, and Don Carlos 
Dehault De Lassus governed West Florida, under his 
orders, and maintained his headquarters at Baton Rouge. 
In West Florida were many settlers of Anglo-Saxon race 
and many who had been citizens of other states, and 
there was a strong public disposition in favor of annex- 
ation to the United States. It is impossible here to de- 
tail the many disorders which arose in and about this 
disputed district. The question of regaining slaves that 
fled from the Orleans and Mississippi Territories into the 
Spanish lines, and the rights of Americans to invade this 
territory and search and seize them, were causes of con- 
stant confusion. Within the territory itself, discontent 
had already manifested itself in an attempted revolution, 
and finally, in 1810, when the fall of the Bourbons had 
caused the Spanish provinces all over the western world 
to think of revolt and freedom, -a movement was set on 
foot in West Florida to establish its independence.^ A 
convention of citizens, at first disposed to request imme- 
diate annexation to the United States, drew up a sort of 
declaration of independence. By a palpable sophistry, 
this declaration asserted that as the rightful ruler of 
Spain had been dispossessed by the usurper Napoleon, 
the province of West Florida, though maintaining its al- 
legiance to the displaced king, owed none to Napoleon, 
and therefore, being without actual ruler, was justified in 
drawing up laws for its own government. Such a decla- 

1 See Gavarr^'s American Domination and H. L. Favrot's discussion 
in the Publications of the Louisiana Historical Society, vol. i, parts 2 
and 3, based on original documents in his possession. 



A TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 249 

ration could of course mean little else than ultimate 
annexation to the United States, but the protestation of 
loyalty to the functus officio king of Spain, Ferdinand 
VII, was made to retain the support of the Spanish offi- 
cials as long as needed. De Lassus remained in office as 
commander-in-chief of the militia and chief judge, with 
Shepard Brown, Eobert Percy, and Fulwar Skip with 
as his associates. Associated prominently with the move- 
ment were names that became important in the history 
of Louisiana at a later date. Governor De Lassus appar- 
ently acquiesced in all these arrangements, but, in Sep- 
tember, 1810, it was found that he was sending messages 
through Shepard Brown to Governor Folch at Pensacola, 
asking that an armed force be sent to quell the insurrec- 
tion. Upon this knowledge, a secret council of the lead- 
ers of the former convention decided to declare the 
independence of West Florida ; an attack was made upon 
Baton Rouge on the night of September 22 ; De Lassus 
and twenty prisoners were taken, the young Lieutenant 
Louis de Grandprd was killed, and the fort, magazines, 
and stores were seized. Independence was declared and 
Fulwar Skipwith elected governor. President Madison 
now intervened, however, and ordered Governor Clai- 
borne to take possession of the country in the name of 
the United States. This was accomplished in December, 
1810. Governor Folch consented to withdraw his claims, 
but the Spaniards remained in possession of Mobile and 
the country east of Pearl E-iver until driven out in 1813 
during the war between the United States and Great 
Britain. Wlien the Territory of Orleans became the State 
of Louisiana in 1812, the Baton Rouge district, or that 
part of West Florida lying south of the thirty -first degree 
of latitude and between Pearl River and the Mississippi, 
was made a part of the new State and divided into the 
present ''Florida Parishes "^of Louisiana. 

The year 1811 was marked by a great uprising of the 
negroes in the parish of St. John the Baptist. About 



250 LOUISIANA 

five hundred in number, they set out in a bold march 
against the city of New Orleans, burning plantation 
houses as they proceeded. They were easily routed, 
however, by the militia and the United States troops. 
Sixty-six of the negroes were killed in the skirmish or 
hanged on the spot. Sixteen others were tried in New 
Orleans, executed, and their heads stuck upon poles at 
intervals along the river between the city and the place 
where the insurrection started. 

The population was now well over sixty thousand, the 
conditional number upon which the Territory was to be 
admitted as one of the States of the Union. In 1811, 
Julien Poydras in the House of E-epresentatives of the 
United States, declared that Orleans should be admitted 
to the Union. Thereupon ensued the violent discussions 
and debates, during which Josiah Quincy of Massachu- 
setts made his famous speech asserting that the admission 
of this alien people would bring about the dissolution of 
the Union, and that it would be the duty of some States 
and the right of all to secede. He was called to order, 
as will be remembered, by John Poind exter of the Missis- 
sippi Territory. On January 14, 1811, a bill was passed, 
and approved by the President on February 20, that the 
Territory of Orleans be authorized to form a state gov- 
ernment and adopt a constitution. 

The convention met in New Orleans, with Julien Poy- 
dras as president, and towards the end of January, 1812, 
adopted a constitution. Congress then admitted the Ter- 
ritory to the Union as the State of Louisiana, the act to 
take effect upon the anniversary of the treaty of cession, 
April 30, 1812. The limits of the new State were to be 
the Sabine Piver on th'e west, the thirty-third degree of 
latitude on the north, as far east as the Mississippi, thence 
down the river to the Iberville, and thence, following 
the course of the Iberville through Lakes Maurepas and 
Pontchartrain to the Gulf, which was, of course, the 
natural southern boundary, including all islands within 



A TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 251 

three leagues of the mainland. As we have seen, the 
Baton Rouge district was almost immediately added to 
Louisiana, bringing the eastern line up to Pearl River. 
The territorial governor, W. C. C. Claiborne, was elected 
first governor of the State under the new constitution. 



CHAPTEE XI 

THE WAR OF 1812 AND THE BATTLE OF NEW 
ORLEANS 

The war of 1812 was, so far as America was concerned, 
but an episode in the age-long struggle between France 
and England ; its result was the verification of Napo- 
leon's prophecy made at the cession of Louisiana to the 
United States : " I have given to England a rival that 
will sooner or later humble her pride ; '^ and it was un- 
usually in accordance with dramatic fitness that Loui- 
siana should be an objective point in the war, and that 
the volunteer troops of the Mississippi, by their defeat 
of the British before New Orleans, should, at that par- 
ticular spot, make good that other portion of the great 
general's prediction ; " The acquisition of this territory 
assures forever the power of the United States." Doubt 
and weakness yet remained as national curses, possession 
was not yet assured, danger from without was required to 
unite the older portion of the country in firm bonds of 
common interest with the newly acquired alien portion, 
and trial by blood was yet needed to place that country 
as a peer among the nations; yet the signing of the act 
of cession by the agents of Jefferson and the agent of 
Napoleon was the second, and no less important, declara- 
tion of independence of the United States. 

Had the country been strong enough, war would have 
been declared in 1805, when Great Britain forbade Amer- 
ican vessels to carry goods from the Spanish and French 
West Indies to Spain or France directly, on the grounds 



TEE WAR OF 1812 253 

that such commerce furnished aid to Napoleon. Thus 
the United States were dragged in to suffer vicariously 
in Great Britain's attempt to crush the master of Europe, 
and nothing but sheer weakness delayed the retaliation. 
Matters had gone on from bad to worse, American vessels 
had been seized, retaliatory decrees injurious to American 
commerce and humiliating to American dignity had been 
passed by France and England alike. Finally, in 1807, 
the British government had closed all the continental 
ports under French control against neutral commerce 
save to vessels that had previously touched at British 
ports, and Kapoleon retorted by authorizing the seizure 
of any vessel that had entered a British port. Thus, as 
France controlled most of the European continent and 
England swept the ocean, there was utter loss to the 
American traders. Great Britain seized and impressed 
American sailors, and paid no heed to the protests made. 
Meanwhile Jefferson's Enforcement Act of 1808, in- 
tended to restrict trade with foreign countries, had 
caused general discontent and almost armed rebellion in 
New England and New York. Though this embargo 
affected disastrously the commercial and working classes 
of England, it was not altogether unfavorable to the 
interests of the British government, as it made Jefferson 
unpopular and strengthened the Federal influence upon 
whose sympathy England counted. Napoleon, on his 
side, took advantage of the act to confiscate American 
vessels, on the ground that they could not legally navi- 
gate the seas. The embargo was therefore removed in 
1809 when Madison became President, and trade was 
allowed with all countries save France and England. 
Many citizens were eager for war, but the feebleness of 
the army and navy and the uprising of the Indians under 
Tecumseh in 1810 withheld the administration from a 
declaration of hostilities. The humiliation could not be 
endured indefinitely, however, and the influence of the 
West, led chiefly by Henry Clay, who entered the House 



254 LOUISIANA 

of E,epresentatives in 1811 from Kentucky, finally brought 
about a declaration of war on June 18, 1812. 

The first years of this carelessly conducted war would 
have, perhaps, ended in disaster to the American cause 
had not Great Britain been hampered by European dan- 
gers and by a huge debt contracted through twenty years 
of almost constant battle with her ancient enemy. In 
but one of the British campaigns, moreover, was there 
possibility of much national gain, either territorial or 
otherwise. This campaign was of course the attempted 
seizure of the Mississippi Valley. This was early known 
by the American government. Madison was authorized 
in February, 1813, to occupy West Florida up to the 
Perdido Eiver. General Wilkinson had been sent to 
New Orleans, and had captured Fort Charlotte at Mobile, 
driven the Spanish out of the disputed territory, and 
begun the erection of Fort Bowyer on Mobile Point. 
Little attempt had been made, however, to protect the 
Gulf Coast or New Orleans from invasion, and through 
two years of the war this exposed front was left prac- 
tically defenseless. Even when the Halifax papers an- 
nounced that an expedition of eighteen thousand of 
Wellington's veterans was to be sent against New Orleans, 
nothing was done by the national government, in spite 
of its exposure, in spite of the nearness of the hostile 
Spanish, in spite of the importance of the place, and in 
spite of the distrust which men of the North and East yet 
affected to feel of the loyalty of the people of Louisiana. 
Major Latour, chief military engineer in the Louisiana 
and West Florida districts, in his valuable "Historical 
Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana '' is 
emphatic in his statements that on the whole Gulf Coast 
there were but six gunboats and one sloop of war. Fort 
Plaquemines, Petites Coquilles, and Fort Bowyer were 
the only fortified outposts. Petites Coquilles was not 
even completed by the time of the invasion, and none of 
the others was in condition to offer effective resistance 



THE WAR OF 1812 266 

to any organized attack. The coast waters of Louisiana 
were accessible to flat-bottomed boats such as were used 
to convey mortars, and might easily have been defended 
against a strong fleet by this means ; but there were only 
two mortars in service, and these were without ammuni- 
tion. These facts were known to the government. Accu- 
rate maps had been made by Latour and Lafon and sent 
to General Wilkinson, and when General Flournay suc- 
ceeded to the command of the troops in the Mississippi 
Valley in 1813, he sent to the secretary of war Major 
Lafon' s atlas of plans of the points to be fortified. 

In the summer of 1814, the British brig Orpheus 
landed troops at Apalachicola Bay in Florida and aroused 
the Creeks to join in an intended attack upon Fort 
Bowyer. Another expedition under Colonel Nicholls 
sailed from Bermuda in the sloops of war Hermes and 
Caron, touched at Havana in the hope of gaining the 
cooperation of the Spanish, and, failing in this, went to 
Pensacola and landed there, although the Spanish gov- 
ernor at Havana had refused them this privilege. This 
expedition was intended to secure information, guides, 
and pilots, and to test the disposition of the native in- 
habitants of Louisiana and Florida before the arrival of 
the large invading force. It was known to the British 
that the native Latin population of Louisiana had been 
recently augmented by great numbers of refugees from 
Jamaica, St. Domingo, Guadeloupe, and other West 
Indian islands. It was known that many of these peo- 
ple had but little natural or racial affinity with the 
government of the United States, and it was hoped that 
they might be induced to assist the British invasion. 
It was known, also, that bodies of contraband traders 
and smugglers held the whole portion of the State 
lying beside the Gulf, and their known defiance of 
the authority of the national government offered the 
hope that these men might be employed as efiective 
auxiliaries or, at least, used as guides through the intri- 



256 LOUISIANA 

cate network of bayous and lakes that formed the water- 
way from the Gulf to the city of New Orleans. 

At this point it is necessary to make a short retro- 
spect. As has been said, the national government had 
neglected the defenses of Louisiana, but the militia had 
been called upon by order of the secretary of war 
and the President, and General Andrew Jackson had 
been sent to West Florida to suppress the Creeks and 
check any small attempt the British might make on that 
side. Governor Claiborne had ordered the militia of 
Louisiana to drill regularly and be in readiness to take 
the field. The people had responded loyally, and great 
public spirit was shown by private citizens in their co- 
operation with the state government to remedy the dan- 
ger to which they had been exposed by the indifference 
of the national authorities. Nevertheless, the presence of 
the smugglers and reputed pirates already referred to, 
and the favor with which the people at large looked 
upon their operations, at least in the opinion of the 
governor, were a source of the greatest uneasiness to 
him. He might have considered that these men, French 
by birth or descent, and many of them refugees from 
the British attacks upon the West Indies, would have 
united in solid hostility against the enemy of their race ; 
but Claiborne was yet to some extent an alien among 
the people of Louisiana, and he saw in the action of 
these free traders nothing but utter defiance of the gov- 
ernment, and in the passive acquiescence of the peo- 
ple to at least a great portion of the contraband trade, 
nothing but innate depravity and the lack of ethical 
principles which the uncomprehending Saxon is often 
too ready to attribute to the Latin. Nevertheless, under 
the circumstances and in view of the imminent danger, 
the governor's uneasiness was at first natural. The 
whole of the southern coast of Louisiana up to the very 
city of New Orleans is a network of bayous, lakes, and 
lagoons threading vast, desolate wastes of salt marsh, 



THE WAR OF 1812 257 

jungle, and forests of cypress and water-oak. A sad 
land with a sombre beauty of its own, these wide acres 
are still the haunt of wild things, untraversed for the 
most part save by the pirogue of the pot-hunter or the 
negro moss-gatherer. Even to-day the waters of the 
almost currentless bayous are alive with great garfish ; 
turtles, snakes, and alligators bask on many a log, and 
herons, cranes, flamingoes, kingfishers, and pelicans hold 
a monopoly of the fisheries. More dense, more intri- 
cately water-threaded than all is the district lying about 
Barataria Bay. Occasional ridges of high ground and 
shell mounds mark many of the refuges or distributing 
points of the smugglers. Through this bay and up these 
bayous the luggers of the Malay, Italian, and mongrel 
fishermen pass to-day to New Orleans. The shallow 
waters of Barataria Bay, impassable to any but light 
craft, are guarded by two islands lying across its mouth. 
The eastern of these is Grande Terre, an island about 
six miles long by two wide. Passing the channel or 
Grand Pass between it and Grande Isle, one notices 
to-day little but two lighthouses and the ruins of an 
old fort, breaking the silhouette of this flat bit of earth. 
Grande Isle is higher, larger, more attractive. In the 
glowing summer weather it is a spot of precious color 
set in the blue water — an unguessed paradise for the 
painter. It is inhabited to-day, by descendants of the 
" pirates,^' by fishermen of Capri, Acadians, and half- 
breeds, picturesque and primitive, restfully unprogres- 
sive and beautifully un-American. This whole wild dis- 
trict, lake, islands, and intricate swamp, was known by 
the general name of Barataria. We hear nothing of 
Baratarians until a considerable number of daring men, 
refugees from the French West Indies, made their strong- 
holds in these deceptive fastnesses, and under letters 
of marque from France and from the young republic of 
Carthagena, preyed upon British commerce as privateers. 
The plunder and the prizes were sold to merchants 



258 LOUISIANA 

from New Orleans, and, little by little, the enterprising 
navigators enlarged their field of operations as they saw 
an opportunity of larger profits. Smuggling and illicit 
slave trading were carried on to a great extent. Orders 
upon Barataria were openly given on the streets of New 
Orleans, and merchants or their agents went regularly 
to the auctions of slaves and plunder held by the Bara- 
tarians at their several distributing points on Grande 
Terre, near Lake Salvador, on the small shell mounds 
of the swamp, and on Bayou Lafourche. 

Some time about the year 1809 there had come to New 
Orleans from Bayonne — or from Bordeaux ■ — the bro- 
thers Pierre and Jean Lafitte. They were active and 
intelligent, and had money or soon acquired it. Shortly 
after their arrival they established a smithy in which the 
work was done by their slaves, but the news rapidly got 
about that the smithy was but the cover for a large busi- 
ness of a quite different nature, and the brothers were 
soon known as the chief agents of the Baratarian smug- 
glers. Both of these men displayed ability, but the 
younger, Jean Lafitte, was indeed an extraordinary man. 
In some way which does not appear, he acquired such 
an ascendance over the Baratarians that his orders and 
proclamations received the obedience of an imperial 
ukase ; he could command the lives of a large body of 
desperate fighters, ruled by his absolute will the whole 
of that wild coast and its lawless people, and yet for 
years maintained his place among the quiet citizens of 
New Orleans. Tradition has given him all the graces 
of person and mind, made him handsome, brilliant, suave 
and polished in manner, brave to rashness, proud as a 
prince, and chivalrous as a knight. Tradition maintains 
also that the doors of many an honored house welcomed 
him as a guest. Some would have it that he was 
merely what he claimed to be, the commander of the 
privateers commissioned to hurt the British trade. Others 
have held that he was merely the agent for disposing of 



THE WAR OF 1812 259 

the prizes. Still others have held that this same suave 
gentleman sometimes sailed under the black flag and 
boarded a bloody prize, cutlass in hand, with as much 
ease as he won the favor of law-abiding citizens by his 
polished manners and delightful courtesy. As well as 
may be surmised at this late day, the truth seems to be 
that while Lafitte actually ruled both the legitimate pri- 
vateers and the smugglers and controlled in ITew Orleans 
the disposition of the fruits of both enterprises, he was 
himself never actively concerned in their getting, and he 
never sanctioned, but, on the contrary, punished, such 
acts of real piracy which seem to have been practiced at 
times by certain of his crews. That such lieutenants as 
Dominique You and Beluche, Nez Coup^ and Gambio, 
took with the cannon and the sword, was never denied ; 
but they claimed that they attacked only the British, 
their legitimate enemies, or the Spanish, when they 
cruised under letters of marque from the revolutionized 
Spanish colonies. The one motive which seems to have 
actuated Lafitte was, indeed, an implacable hatred against 
England, a hatred mysterious in its intensity and origin. 
How he obtained his practically absolute control of these 
free-lances is not known, but that he exercised such au- 
thority seems reasonably certain. 

The United States government naturally looked with 
disfavor upon this settlement of privateers, and Governor 
Claiborne was much disturbed by their presence in his 
territory ; but they were strongly established and forti- 
fied on the mainland, they had armed vessels manned by 
skilled sailors and tried gunners, a small fort protected 
the entrance to Barataria Bay, outposts guarded against 
surprise, and it was hopeless to follow them into the 
intricate windings of the bayous and through the laby- 
rinthine swamp. The attention of the government was 
forcibly directed to the Baratarians by their bold viola- 
tions of the Embargo Act, and from the year 1809 one 
reads in the New Orleans papers of occasional seizures 



260 LOUISIANA 

of vessels and sporadic prosecutions ; but the sentiment 
of the people was not strongly against either privateers 
or smugglers, and good lawyers were readily found to de- 
fend those so unfortunate as to be captured. Futile pro- 
clamations were issued, but Baratarian trade flourished 
none the less, and the people profited by it. In October 
of 1813, Walter Gilbert, a United States revenue officer, 
and some subordinates, who had seized some smuggled 
goods, were fired upon near the city by men under the 
orders of Jean Lafitte and the goods taken forcibly from 
them in broad daylight. Governor Claiborne thereupon 
issued an eloquent proclamation and offered a reward of 
five hundred dollars for Lafitte's arrest. So little did 
this affect the Baratarians, that in January, 1814, a lot 
of four hundred and fifty negroes were sold by public 
auction at Barataria, and a revenue officer named Stout 
was killed near ^' the Temple ^' by Lafitte's men and his 
whole posse captured. Claiborne laid these facts before 
the legislature and urged action, but the legislature had 
no money to provide a force to dislodge five hundred 
determined and well-armed men from well-nigh impas- 
sable fastnesses in the swamp, and nothing was done 
further than to appoint a committee to confer with the 
governor. Less than two months elapsed before the gov- 
ernor had again to send a special message to the legis- 
lature with reports of new outrages and an appeal for 
authority to raise a volunteer force to dislodge the 
Baratarians. General Flournoy had been appealed to, 
but he needed the small force under his command to 
watch the British and guard against the attack which 
every one feared. The legislature took no action, for 
many of its members, as did a majority of the people, 
fancied that they were benefited by the smuggling trade, 
disbelieved in the restrictive policy of the administration, 
and furthermore had somewhat justly acquired a feeling 
of dislike to the government that had in many cases 
treated the Territory and State of Louisiana with injus- 



THE WAR OF 1812 261 

tice. An attempt was made by the grand jury, however, 
to bring charges of piracy against the Lafittes, and some 
testimony was taken. It was difficult to gather damaging 
testimony against these men. It is, moreover, scarcely 
probable that they had time to commit acts of piracy. 
They furnished capital, they disposed of the plunder, 
they organized and directed. Men in their employ prob- 
ably committed piracy, but it was against the policy of 
the brothers to shed blood. On one occasion, when Jean 
Lafitte was carrying merchandise through Bayou La- 
fourche, he was attacked by revenue officers ; he is said 
to have repulsed them with some bloodshed and then 
apologized for the unpleasant necessity which compelled 
him to use violence in protecting his goods. Judge 
Gayarre states -^ that he examined the testimony taken at 
this time, and that it was not established that the Bara- 
tarians had ever captured vessels other than those which 
their letters of marque authorized them to attack. The 
records of these judicial proceedings, however, are unsat- 
isfactory, owing to the absence of dates in them, and it 
is not even clear that these accusations ever led to a trial. 
On this or some other occasion, however, the case of the 
Lafittes was tried, and John R. Grymes, the United 
States District Attorney, resigned his position to take 
their case for a fee which tradition has fixed at twenty 
thousand dollars. Edward Livingston was also retained 
by the defense. The story goes that, when the case had 
been won, Jean Lafitte invited the two lawyers to visit 
him at Barataria and receive there the promised payment. 
Livingston, afraid to put himself thus in the hands of his 
untrusted debtors, offered Grymes a ten per cent commis- 
sion for collecting his fee. Grymes went to Barataria, fell ill 
there, was nursed through his spell of sickness, and finally 
sent back to New Orleans with the two fees amounting 
together to forty thousand dollars. So impressed was he 
with the generous entertainment which had been given 
1 Historical Sketch of Pierre and Jean Lajitte, p. 294. 



262 LOUISIANA 

him that he declared to his friends: *^What a cruel 
misnomer it is to call the most honest and polished gen- 
tlemen the world ever produced bandits and pirates ! " 

It will be remembered that a British force under Colonel 
Nicholls had been sent along the Gulf Coast to obtain 
guides and pilots for the large expedition planned against 
New Orleans. Nicholls had received information of La- 
fitte and his Baratarian establishment. He rightly thought 
that, by securing the assistance of these outlaws, whose 
intimate knowledge of all quiet approaches to the town 
would be invaluable, the place might be surprised at a 
disadvantage. On the 3d of September, 1814, therefore, 
he sent two of his officers to offer Lafitte the rank of 
captain in the British navy and thirty thousand dollars 
in cash for the services of himself and his men. He was 
given copies of the proclamation which Nicholls had been 
scattering about the country in the hope of inciting the 
French and Spanish inhabitants. The first attack was to 
be made upon Mobile ; New Orleans was to be captured, 
and the force so employed was to be joined by another 
that would descend the river from Canada. Lafitte de- 
manded time for consideration, and upon some pretext 
left the officers long enough to examine carefully the 
papers which had been given him, and perhaps consult 
with his lieutenants. During his absence and perhaps 
by his order, certain of his men seized the officers and 
ponfined them in a secure place. Here they were kept all 
night, and were then released with many apologies by 
Lafitte and sent away with no more satisfaction than the 
assurance that he would consider their ofier and commu- 
nicate his answer within a fortnight. Immediately after 
the departure of the British officers, Lafitte sent all the 
papers which they had given him to J. Blanque, a 
member of the state legislature. The information thus 
received was laid by Blanque before Governor Claiborne, 
who, according to Latour,^ laid the whole matter before 
1 Historical Memoir, p. 22. 



THE WAR OF 1812 263 

the newly formed Committee of Defense. Latour states, 
moreover, that Lafitte's messenger was sent hack with 
a verhal message, urging him to take no steps until de- 
cision on his offer of loyalty could he made. He was 
assured, however, that no attack would he made against 
him in the meanwhile. There is some confusion here. 
This " Committee of Defense '^ can scarcely be the one 
organized by the citizens on September 15, with Living- 
ston as chairman. Latour may perhaps refer to the mili- 
tary committee consisting of Eoss, Patterson, Villere, and 
Claiborne, but this committee is said to have rejected all 
negotiations with Lafitte from the outset. Before La- 
fitte received any official reply to his communications 
he obtained possession of an anonymous letter from Ha- 
vana giving a more detailed account of the expedition 
planned by the British. This document was sent to 
Blanque on the 7th, with renewed offers of service from 
Lafitte and further protestations of his loyalty to Loui- 
siana. It appears that after sending this letter Jean 
Lafitte left Grande Terre and went to Bayou Lafourche to 
warn the planters of their danger. His brother Pierre 
had been arrested in New Orleans and confined in jail 
under irons, but had escaped on the night of September 
6, and taken with him three negroes. Three days later 
he wrote from Grande Terre to Blanque offering his 
assistance, and inclosing a letter written by Jean to 
Governor Claiborne, with the request that it be laid im- 
mediately before him. By this letter, the cooperation of 
his men with the forces of the country against the British 
was offered in return for oblivion of his past offenses. 
''If you were thoroughly, acquainted," writes Lafitte, 
' ' with the nature of my offenses, I should appear to you 
less guilty and still worthy to discharge the duties of a 
good citizen. I have never sailed under any flag but that 
of the republic of Carthagena, and my vessels are per- 
fectly regular in that respect. If I could have brought my 
lawful prizes into the ports of this State, I should not 



264 LOUISIANA 

have employed the illicit means that have caused me to 
be proscribed. . . . Should your answer not be favorable 
to my ardent desires, I declare to you that I will instantly 
leave the country, to avoid the imputation of having 
cooperated towards an invasion on this point, which can- 
not fail to take place, and rest secure in the acquittal of 
•my own conscience." 

Meanwhile more active measures were being taken 
against the Baratarian establishment, this time by the 
United States government. A strong expedition under 
Commodore Patterson and Colonel Koss had been organ- 
ized for the work. Preparations were being made at the 
time of Lafitte's patriotic offers, and a reward of one 
thousand dollars was being daily advertised in the 
" Courier " for the capture of the escaped Pierre. Lafitte 
was evidently not expecting to be attacked before some 
answer had been returned to his communications. When, 
therefore, the attack was actually made on September 18, 
the Baratarians were completely surprised. Much booty 
and some prisoners were taken, but a strong force got 
away and fortified themselves upon Last Island. The bro- 
thers escaped, also, and were concealed by friends on the 
" German Coast." 

The Barataria district was thus left unprotected, and 
Claiborne wrote immediately to General Jackson sug- 
gesting that the vacant post be at once occupied by 
troops. The governor is said to have been somewhat in- 
clined to accept Lafitte's offer of assistance, as had been 
General Viller^, the commander of the state militia. 
Commodore Patterson and Colonel Ross had opposed any 
such action, however. Prosecutions were now pending 
in the District Court against several of the prisoners, but 
Claiborne was uneasy lest the people should resist a too 
severe enforcement of the law, and therefore, in view of 
the danger of invasion, he wrote to the attorney-general 
of the United States : " I see no good to be obtained by 
making the penalties of the laws to fall extensively and 



THE WAR OF 1812 2^^ 

heavily. . . . Should the President think proper to in- 
struct the attorney for the district of Louisiana to select 
a few of the most hardened of the Baratarians for trial, 
and to forbear to prosecute all others concerned, I think 
such an act of clemency would be well received, and 
attended at the present moment with the best effects. A 
sympathy for the offenders is certainly more or less felt 
by many of the Louisianians.'^ General Jackson at Mo- 
bile was of another mind. Upon receipt of Claiborne's 
letter he issued to the Louisianians one of his robust 
proclamations, in which he bitterly denounced the Brit- 
ish for attempting to form an alliance with the '' hellish 
banditti." The proclamation closes with these words, 
especially interesting in view of the general's change of 
opinion when he finally looked into the matter for him- 
self: '' Confident that any attempt to invade our soil will 
be repelled, the undersigned calls not upon pirates and 
robbers to join him in the glorious cause." The general 
came to New Orleans on December 2, 1814, and took 
the direction of affairs into his own energetic hands. He 
saw at once that the defenseless city needed every man 
that could bear arms. Jean Lafitte waited personally 
upon the general and offered him what he needed most, 
— trained gunners and men accustomed to face danger 
and fight against odds. On December 17, the legisla- 
ture passed a resolution requesting Jackson to demand 
pardon for all the outlaws who should join the army of 
defense, and on the same day Governor Claiborne, with 
Jackson's approbation, issued a proclamation calling upon 
the outlaws to join the army, and promising that the 
general and the governor would unite to obtain pardon 
for them from the President. 

Jackson found the Baratarians to be men after his own 
heart. His judgment was quickly made. He put them 
at once in positions of trust and danger. Some were sent 
down the river to Fort St. Philip, some to the toy Span- 
ish Fort on Lake Pontchartrain at the mouth of Bayou 



266 LOUISIANA 

St. John, others to the half-finished mud fort called 
Petites Coquilles (now Fort Pike) out on the Eigolets. 
The management of two chief batteries in his own force 
was given to those fire-eaters Dominique You and 
Beluche. The treachery of any one of these parties of 
^' pirates " would have let the British into the city, but 
not a pirate failed to sustain Jackson's ready judgment 
and confidence. 

Before the arrival of Jackson, all had been confusion. 
The small number of regular troops at hand threw the 
burden of defense upon the raw militia. The approaches 
to the city were but feebly defended. The governor had 
not that firmness and decision of character which the 
crisis required. Jackson was, it is true, no trained tac- 
tician and had been taught in no other school than that 
of experience ; but he came to Louisiana fresh from his 
successful suppression of the Creeks, his chastisement of 
the Spaniards at Pensacola had fully shown his vigor- 
ous and fearless method of fighting, and his character 
was such as to inspire swift confidence and stir the 
energy of those about him by contagion from his own. 
He brought with him also a force of hardy fighters, men 
accustomed, like himself, to hardship and danger, the 
backwoodsmen of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi. 
Volunteers flocked to his call in the city and throughout 
the State. The place was soon alive with energy. 

Meanwhile the force of 7450 British under General 
Keane that had been forming in Jamaica had set sail 
in a fleet of about fifty vessels towards the end of No- 
vember. On December 10 they anchored at Cat Island. 
Here they were discovered by Lieutenant Thomas Ap 
Catesby Jones, whose little flotilla of feeble gunboats 
guarded the approach from the Gulf through Lake 
Borgne, — the point from which the city might be 
reached with the least difficulty. Jones had but six 
gunboats and had been ordered to fall back, if he should 
be attacked by a greatly superior force, through the nar- 



THE WAR OF 1812 267 

row Rigolets to Fort Petites Coquilles. Seeing the great 
number of the enemy, he tried to retreat, but the wind 
failed him suddenly and he could make no head against 
the current that flowed from the E-igolets into the lake. 
His boats were forced into the narrow channel between 
Point Clear and Malheureux Island and grounded in the 
mud. Here he cast out his anchors and encouraged his 
one hundred and eighty-two men to offer the best resist- 
ance possible. Admiral Cochrane now sent one thousand 
men in fifty launches, barges, and open boats against the 
little fleet. They advanced in a glittering line of color 
and with perfect order, each boat with a brass carronade 
in its prow, and twelve skilled oarsmen driving on each 
boat with rhythmic strokes. In the same perfect order 
they sustained the fierce fire which tore their line from 
the desperate American fleet. With the loss of three 
hundred men they brought the fighting to close quarters 
with cutlass and pistol, boarding the gunboats and cap- 
turing them after killing sixty of the defenders. 

Admiral Cochrane was now in control of Lake Borgne. 
The infantry were landed upon the desolate He des Pois 
near the mouth of Pearl River. Ignorant of the coun- 
try, they remained here exposed to cold, dampness, and 
sickness till they learned from some fishermen that Bayou 
Bienvenu had been left undefended and that it was 
navigable by barges for twelve miles to a canal which ran 
to a plantation on the Mississippi River eight miles below 
New Orleans. Two officers disguised as fishermen made 
the trip up Bayou Bienvenu to Villere's Canal and by 
this to the Mississippi, obtained information of the coun- 
try from some negroes, and returned to the fleet with 
the report that the attack upon the city from this direc- 
tion would be an easy matter. 

On December 22 — a cold day of rain and gloom — 
Keane sent sixteen hundred men to Bayou Bienvenu 
(called Bayou Catalan by the British and St. Francis 
River on old maps). A detachment in advance of this 



268 LOUISIANA 

force captured nine white men and three negroes who 
had been stationed there as pickets. The prisoners were 
cross-examined closely, but by preconcerted agreement 
each man stated that Jackson had twelve thousand men 
in New Orleans and four thousand at English Turn. As 
all told the same tale, the British were misled as to the 
miserable number of troops actually in Jackson's army. 
The British poled their barges slowly up Bayou Bien- 
venu and Bayou Mazant into Villere's Canal. They 
landed on Yillere's plantation, pushed through the dense 
cane-brake and cyprieres, and surrounded the house. 
Major Yillere, a son of the general, and his brother were 
captured. Fearful lest his easy capture be misinterpreted 
as disloyalty, young Villere resolved upon a desperate 
attempt to escape and bear the news to the city, less 
than eight miles away. Watching his opportunity, he 
leaped from a window and dashed for the swamp. Sev- 
eral unarmed soldiers tried to intercept him. These he 
succeeded in pushing aside and reached the shelter of 
the cypress wood and the swamp amid a volley of mus- 
ket balls sent after him. The British were hot in pur- 
suit, but he succeeded in getting out of sight in the 
swamp and concealing himself in a moss-covered tree. 
He had scarcely hidden himself in the thick branches, 
when he heard the whine of a dog at the foot of the 
tree and saw that his pet setter had followed him in 
his flight. Feeling that the safety of the city depended 
upon his escape, and knowing that the actions of his 
dog would guide the British straight to his hiding- 
place, he was compelled to kill the poor beast by a 
blow with a stick and to fling the body into the under- 
growth. He remained in the tree until the British had 
abandoned their search for him, and then made his 
way to the next plantation, got a horse, and galloped 
to the city with his news of the danger. Fortunately 
for the city, the enemy, deceived by the statements of 



THE WAR OF 1812 269 

the prisoners, encamped on the plantation and did not 
press forward at once to attack the place. 

The news threw the army of defense into immediate 
activity. As usual, Jackson made his plans at once and 
decided to attack the enemy before nightfall. His quick 
action probably saved the city. The gunboat Carolina, 
under Commodore Patterson, was ordered to get under 
way and drop down the river. Couriers were sent flying 
to summon the troops from their several stations. Jack- 
son himself ordered out the regulars and stationed him- 
self with them at the gate of i'ort St. Charles to review 
the troops as they came up and took orders for the march 
down the levee road. By three o'clock of the same after- 
noon (December 23), the troops came in at a run. The 
artillery had been sent down to block the road to the 
city. Coffee's mounted riflemen, with their long hair, 
coonskin caps, hunting-shirts, and belts stuck with knives 
and hatchets, were sent down at a gallop. Hind's dra- 
goons, Beale's Creole riflemen, Blanche's and D'Aquin's 
battalions of free men of color, and a band of Choctaw 
Indians in their war paint were hurried down to the 
front. Last of all came the regulars drawn from the 7th 
and 44th regiments. In all, the force sent down this 
day amounted to a little over two thousand men. Gov- 
ernor Claiborne, with General Carroll's force, remained 
behind to guard against a flank movement through Bayou 
St. John. 

About seven o'clock in the evening, the Carolina 
opened fire upon the British and forced them to desert 
their camp and take shelter under the levee. Soon the 
ral^tle of musketry from the road and the woods told that 
they were being attacked from that direction. The dark- 
ness was so dense that the Americans were on the Brit- 
ish pickets before they were aware of it. The British 
were thrown into confusion, each man fighting for him- 
self. The battle was close, hand to hand, and in grim 



270 LOUISIANA 

earnest, the British using the bayonet and the Kentuck- 
ians their long Indian knives. But now a heavy fog fell 
upon the combatants, and Jackson ordered his men to 
withdraw to Kodriguez's Canal, leaving the British in 
possession of their camp on the Villere plantation. In 
this engagement the British lost some three hundred in 
killed, wounded, and prisoners, and the Americans a 
trifle over two hundred. The British were convinced by 
this attack that Jackson had a large force under his 
command, and their advance was effectively checked. 
The Americans, on their part, were greatly encouraged 
by this first encounter with their formidable foe and more 
than ever confident in their leader, who had proved that 
he could be as brave in action as he was energetic in 
command, for he had spared no personal danger to spur 
on his new troops by his own example. 

On the 24th peace was being signed between Great 
Britain and the United States at Ghent, but the two 
armies before New Orleans were ignorant of this. The 
British lay all day under a steady and disconcerting 
fire from the Carolina, waiting for reinforcements, and 
the Americans were busy strengthening their position 
behind Kodriguez Canal. A low breastwork of earth was 
thrown up and some cotton bales, seized from a vessel in 
the river, were used in the hope that they would be of 
some protection. The levee was cut below the works so 
that the water might flood the plain through which the 
British would be compelled to advance, but the river 
was low and the small amount of water let through 
merely served to increase the depth of the bayous and 
thus rather assist the enemy in bringing up men and 
guns. On the 25th the British army numbered over 
five thousand, the pick of the army, men who had 
fought through the Peninsular Campaign under Welling- 
ton; and Sir Edward Pakenham had now come up to 
take the command. His presence lent great courage to 
his men, for he was one of the bravest and ablest generals 



THE WAR OF 1812 271 

in the British army, had fought through the Peninsular 
War with honor, and had won his knighthood by person- 
ally leading the charge at Salamanca. But the invading 
army before New Orleans was in a sad condition. The 
men were exhausted, for the continuous fire which the 
Carolina poured into their camp gave them no rest. 
Moreover, the sharpshooters in the dense cypress swamp 
on their flank busied themselves day and night by pick- 
ing off sentinels and pickets with their terrible rifles, at 
no risk to themselves. Pakenham, after looking over the 
field, had small hope of success, but the counsel of Ad- 
miral Cochrane prevailed, and ordering up heavy guns 
from the fleet on the night of the 26th, planted a pow- 
erful battery on the levee, and next day silenced and 
blew up the unhappy Carolina. The gunboat Louisiana 
was also shelled but managed to escape. The army 
now moved forward and camped within six hundred 
yards of Jackson's lines. On the morning of the 28th, 
they attacked in a line extending from the river to the 
woods, but Jackson had now four thousand men with 
him, and the heavy guns of the Baratarian " pirates '^ 
with those of the Louisiana tore the advancing line 
of attack with a murderous fire, driving the British 
to cover. With tremendous exertion more heavy guns 
were brought up from the fleet, as it was evident that 
the strength of the Americans lay in their superior artil- 
lery and the skill with which it was managed. While 
this was being done. Commodore Patterson equipped a 
battery on the west bank of the river with guns from 
the Louisiana. 

On the night of the 31st, under cover of darkness, the 
enemy erected three solid earthworks in the form of 
demilunes, about four hundred yards from the American 
lines. These works were hastily constructed, however, 
and the attempt to strengthen them by barricades of sugar 
hogsheads proved ineffectual. They were furnished with 
heavy guns from the fleet and manned by veteran gun- 



272 LOUISIANA 

ners who had served under Nelson and Collingswood. 
The infantry fell back and waited for the artillery to 
make a breach in the American works at daybreak. The 
firing began early on the morning of New Year's Day, 
1815. For a time the American line was thrown into 
confusion and exposed to serious danger, for the rockets 
of the enemy set fire to the parapet of cotton bales ; but 
these were thrown into the ditch, and the batteries of 
Dominique You and Beluche kept up such a hot and 
well-directed fire that the new works of the British were 
knocked to pieces in about an hour and a half. The 
American gunners now directed their fire upon the bat- 
tery on the levee which had kept the Louisiana at 
a distance, and soon reduced it. During the night the 
British drew off such of their guns as remained unde- 
stroyed. 

Gloom and depression began to settle over the British 
camp. Their position was disadvantageous, provisions 
were scant, the men were suffering from exposure and 
sickness, and the lack of rest had produced a heavy strain 
upon the whole force, for the American gunners per- 
mitted no sleep in the camp by night, and by day the 
backwoods riflemen, hidden in the cypress swamp, picked 
off sentinels and outposts with their unfailing marks- 
manship. Pakenham saw that nothing remained but to 
retreat or carry the American position by storm. He 
decided upon the latter course, and planned to make a 
simultaneous attack upon Jackson and upon the small 
force under General David Morgan on the west bank of 
the river. To accomplish this, it was necessary to extend 
Yillere's Canal two miles so as to bring it to the river 
and furnish means to get up the barges that would be 
required for the crossing of the river. The first week of 
January was spent at this work. 

While the British were thus occupied, Jackson was 
strengthening his own position, to repel the attack which 
he felt would soon be made upon him. He had received 



THE WAR OF 1S12 273 

the expected reinforcement of twenty-two hundred Ken- 
tucky militia under Thomas and Adair, but these men 
had come in a condition that had almost unfitted them for 
service. Only a few were armed with old muskets, and all 
were in rags and worn with their forced journey. It was 
impossible to arm them, for the United States govern- 
ment had neglected to send a sufficient supply of rifles 
and ammunition to New Orleans. The bulk of this force 
was therefore stationed about two miles in the rear, with 
the unarmed reserves that had been collected by hurried 
conscription in New Orleans. In order to clothe the 
half-naked men, it was necessary to take woolen cloth and 
blankets from the warehouses of merchants in the city, 
and to rely upon the donations of citizens and the sewing 
of the women to furnish them with garments. Never- 
theless, in spite of their scanty numbers, the troops were 
full of confidence and enthusiasm. 

After the experience with the cotton bales, Jackson 
adopted more solid means of defense. Rodriguez Canal 
was flooded. A parapet of fence-palings, five feet high, 
was raised along the bank, and solidly piled with earth 
to a thickness of twenty feet in some places. The line 
of defense ran from the river at right angles for about 
half a mile, and then turned along the edge of the woods 
to the left, running thence for another half-mile to the 
impassable swamp. -^ Here in the swamp were stationed 
most of Coffee's and Carroll's sharpshooters. These 
hardy woodsmen stood knee-deep in mud, and fought in 
Indian fashion, each man for himself and behind cover, 
and each singling his special target among the ranks of 
the enemy. Along the whole line were eight batteries. 
Number One under Captain Humphreys of the United 
States regulars, supported by Major St. Geme's dragoons, 
was stationed nearest the river. Numbers Two and Four 
were commanded by Lieutenants Norris and Crawley of 
the navy, and were manned by gunners from the destroyed 
1 Latour's Historical Memoirs is here followed. 



274 LOUISIANA 

Carolina. Number Three was commanded by Domi- 
nique You and Beluche, with their '^ pirates " and some 
veteran gunners of the French army. Numbers Five and 
Seven were held by the regular artillery under Colonel 
Perry. Number Six was under General De Flaujac. 
Number Eight was in bad condition and unable to render 
much service. It was manned by a small portion of 
Carroll's force, commanded by a corporal. On the river 
was a redoubt held by some men of the 7th and 44th 
regiments under Lieutenants Koss and Marant. Next 
to these were the Orleans Volunteer Biflemen, then 
Major Peire and a portion of the 7th regiment; beyond 
these were the colored troops under Majors Plauche, 
D'Aquin, and Lacoste ; and beyond these was the rest 
of the 44th under Captain Baker. In the woods and 
swamp on the extreme left were the troops of Bellevue, 
Carroll, Adair, and Coffee. On the west bank of the 
river General Morgan, with about one thousand men, 
many of them unarmed, held the levee road in a feeble 
redoubt. Jackson's whole force, including reserves and 
camp guards, was under five thousand men. The whole 
of the right wing was under the general command of 
Colonel Boss, the left was under General Coffee. 

By the 7th of January, 1815, Pakenham had com- 
pleted his labors and had been further reinforced till his 
army now numbered about eight thousand men. The 
day before, he had laid his plans before his chief officers 
in a council held in Villere's house. The plan was to 
send Colonel Thornton, one of the ablest officers in the 
British army, across the river with one thousand men 
on the night of the 7th to surprise Morgan's force. This 
done, Thornton was to send up rockets, whereupon the 
main force was to storm Jackson's works while Thorn- 
ton recrossed the river and attacked Jackson in the rear, 
cutting him off from the city. The British had regained 
confidence, and the party in Villere's house was a gay 
one. All drank with enthusiasm to the inspiring toast. 



THE WAR OF 1812 275 

*' Booty and Beauty." Unfortunately there was present 
a planter by the name of Delaronde, who had visited 
the British upon their arrival and was supposed to be 
friendly to their cause. When the meeting broke up 
Delaronde made his way by night to Jackson's camp 
and informed him on the morning of the 7th of the plans 
of the British.-^ Jackson placed double guards, and the 
troops slept that night under arms. Coffee's men in the 
swamps passed the night on floating logs tied to trees. 

Fortune was against the British at the first movement, 
the banks of the canal which they had dug to the river 
caved in and only enough barges were gotten through to 
transport six or seven hundred men ; then the current of 
the river bore them so far below their intended landing 
place that it was daybreak before they were ready to 
attack Morgan. Meanwhile Generals Keane and Gibbs 
marched their troops to within sight of the American 
breastworks and waited in vain for Thornton's signal. 
At last Pakenham could delay no longer, and ordered the 
assault. 

General Gibbs led forward his division to the assault 
through a terrific fire from the American guns. The men 
advanced in perfect order till the knowledge got about 
among them that the Irish Forty-fourth under Colonel 
Mullen had neglected to bring the scaling-ladders and 
fascines. There was a momentary delay in the advance ; 
Pakenham rode up and ordered the Forty-fourth back for 
the ladders, while the attacking column halted on the 
field and bore the slaughtering hail of grape-shot that 
tore their ranks. Gibbs could only stand and watch his 
men murdered and swear by the high gods that he would 
hang Mullen to the highest tree in the swamp. The men 
could not stand the unbearable strain, and Gibbs ordered 
the column forward in sheer desperation without waiting 
for the Forty-fourth to come up. Every gun on Jack- 
son's line poured a steady fire into their brave ranks ; 

1 Nolte's Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres. 



276 LOUISIANA 

Patterson's recently erected battery across the river tore 
the column with a flank fire. Still the British came on, 
within a hundred yards of the ditch. Now Jackson, 
passing along the line, said to his riflemen : ^^ Give it to 
them, boys ! Let us finish this business to-day." The 
Tennessee sharpshooters stood on the top of the parapet, 
and behind them were the Kentuckians in two lines. At 
the word the first line fired, each man aiming at a 
chosen mark, and fell back to load while the Kentuckians 
stepped into their places and fired in the same way, in 
turn giving place to their second line. By this means an 
unceasing fire of murderous accuracy was kept up, giving 
the British no time for recovery. The red line began to 
melt away as if by magic ; the officers rushed before it, 
urging the wavering men on to the attack ; the riflemen 
on the parapets and the sharpshooters in the swamp 
singled out the ofiicers and picked them off one by one. 
Now the Porty-fourth came up with the ladders, Paken- 
ham himself leading them. His horse fell under him, 
but he mounted a small black pony and pushed before 
the line. The men, throwing aside their knapsacks, rushed 
forward to the ditch, struggled through, set their ladders 
against the breastworks, and attempted to scale the top. 
Major Bennie fell, shot to pieces, within one of the 
American redoubts ; but the gallant attack was met by 
an equally gallant resistance, the assault was repulsed, 
the column fell back. General Keane now ordered up 
the Highlanders, who had been held in reserve up to this 
time. Again the full column, led by Pakenham, Gibbs, 
and Keane in person, pressed forward to the attack. But 
the deliberate fire of the American batteries and the 
selective shooting of the invisible riflemen in the woods 
ceased not an instant. It was a fatal day to the officers. 
Pakenham was struck and died upon the field ; Gibbs 
was borne off mortally wounded ; Keane was disabled 
and taken to the rear. General Lambert, far in the 
rear with the reserves, got the news and advanced. No 



TEE WAR OF 1812 277 

field officer remained, but the brave Major Wilkinson led 
his men once again to the very breastworks and fell 
mortally wounded within the American lines. When 
Lambert reached the field with the reserves, he could do 
nothing but cover the rout, for the men were hopelessly 
broken and flying for safety. 

The firing ceased, and as Jackson rode down his line 
the bands struck up " Hail Columbia,'' and the grimy 
gunners and powder-burned riflemen shouted themselves 
hoarse. The news sped to the city, and soon the carriages 
began to come down, many of them filled with women 
less joyful over the victory than anguished with fear for 
the fate of the men. The loss, however, at the highest 
estimate, was but seventy-one, and the care of the women 
who came down to the field was more for the wounded 
of the enemy than for their own. As the smoke cleared 
away and lifted from the field, over two thousand Brit- 
ish dead lay in the ditch and before the works, and for 
a quarter of a mile could be seen crawling and writhing 
red uniforms among those that lay motionless. 

About midday an officer came under flag of truce from 
General Lambert, asking for an armistice to bury the 
dead. The battle was now over, the British defeated, 
save for the useless success of Colonel Thornton, who, 
on the farther side of the river, had driven General Mor- 
gan's one thousand men with little difficulty from their 
redoubt. The dead were interred upon the field, the work 
going on until late at night. From the American camp, 
the soldiers watched the flickering of the funeral torches 
in Villere's garden. 

When the armistice expired, Colonel Thornton aban- 
doned the captured redoubt on the west bank and crossed 
the river. The American batteries resumed the shelling 
of the British camp. Upon the side of the invaders no 
active attempt was made, save an efi'ort of a portion of 
the Gulf fleet to ascend the river and pass Fort St. 
Philip. This attempt was abandoned by the 18th. On 



278 LOUISIANA 

this day an exchange of prisoners took place, and Gen- 
eral Lambert set about the difficult task of drawing off 
his forces without further loss. This task had occupied 
his attention for many days, and did indeed seem practi- 
cally impossible. So few boats remained that he was un- 
able to send his men to the fleet through the bayou, as 
they had come, even if he had dared to weaken his 
strength by thus dividing the army. He was compelled, 
therefore, to build a road along the edge of the bayou 
from the field of battle to Lake Borgne. On the night 
of the 18th he spiked all the heavy guns that could not 
be moved and formed his column in marching order. 
Camp-fires were lighted and sentinels posted as usual. 
Under cover of darkness the army slipped away, and 
when the rear guard had left the camp, each sentinel 
stood a stuffed dummy in his place and followed the 
army. 

In the morning, the strangely quiet appearance of the 
British camp attracted the notice of the American offi- 
cers, yet the glasses showed the posted sentinels and no 
apparent change. Finally General Humbert noticed some 
crows flying about one of the supposed sentinels, and the 
deception was made plain. At this juncture a messenger 
under a flag of truce from General Lambert approached, 
announced the final departure of his army and fleet, and 
begged that the wounded, whom he had been compelled 
to leave in his camp, might receive consideration. 

The fleet left the Gulf on March 17, and reached 
England in time to send the same troops into Belgium 
to take part in the battle of Waterloo, where General 
Lambert gained distinguished notice. 

On the 21st of January, Jackson ordered most of the 
troops to the city, leaving guards at exposed points, but 
the force was not yet disbanded. On the 23d, a day of 
thanksgiving was celebrated by high mass and a Te Deum 
at the cathedral, Jackson was honored as he deserved, 
and was made to feel the gratitude of the impulsive 



THE WAR OF 1812 279 

people. He, in his turn, gracefully laid all the glory upon 
the troops that had so gallantly flocked to the defense 
of the country. He thanked, through Mayor Girod, the 
citizens of New Orleans, those who fought and those 
who assisted in other ways, men and woroen, for their 
enthusiastic patriotism. The happy moment seemed given 
over to confidence and gratulation. But the truly glori- 
ous picture of the defense of the city has its unfortunate 
reverse. It was at least ominous that, when the legisla- 
ture, on the 2d of February, voted its thanks to the vol- 
unteers from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, no 
mention was made of General Jackson's name. 

The truth was that, while the British were before the 
city, a misunderstanding between Jackson and the legis- 
lature had fomented distrust between the general and 
the representatives of the people, and unhappily events 
subsequent to the retreat of the enemy were not destined 
to close the breach. Jackson had come to New Orleans 
with many of tho preconceived American prejudices 
against the native inhabitants, and Governor Claiborne 
had not hesitated to increase that prejudice by warning 
him that the loyalty of the people to the United States 
was questionable and that there were many treacherously 
inclined persons in the city of New Orleans especially. 
Such prejudice was excusable in the governor during 
the first years of his administration, but such experience 
as he should have gained from the Wilkinson -Burr epi- 
sode and from his long contact with the old inhabitants 
should fiave convinced him that however much the peo- 
ple felt themselves ill used in certain cases by the na- 
tional government, they were at least ardently patriotic 
in their love for their own State and firmly convinced 
that henceforth its interests and destinies were intimately 
bound with those of the other States of the American 
Union. The governor has laid himself open to the 
charge of seeking to increase his own credit by exagger- 
ating the dangers of this crisis, as had been done during 



280 LOUISIANA 

the rumors of Burr's conspiracy, and by undervaluing 
the really unstinted support which he received in each 
time of danger from the very people whose zeal he af- 
fected to doubt or did actually doubt because of his own 
timorous and wavering nature. General Jackson, there- 
fore, had his prejudices strengthened by the governor's 
attitude. He had gone beyond Claiborne's wishes, how- 
ever, in declaring the city under martial law, which had 
been rigidly enforced from December 16. At Jackson's 
request, Claiborne asked the legislature, then in cession, 
to adjourn, but the Assembly very justly declined to do 
so. Jackson had been led to believe that the Assembly 
was capable of disloyal action and that it might influence 
the people by its decisions. Feeling as he did and doubt- 
ing in his heart the temper of the people, he was right 
to demand the absolute control of the place if he were 
expected to save it from the peril that threatened. Had 
he known the true state of affairs, his action would in 
all probability have been different. The legislature, on 
their side, knew the feeling of the people throughout the 
State in a way not possible even to the governor, and 
their consciousness of their own loyal zeal and that of 
the whole people made them reject any suggestion to 
close their doors on any grounds that might justify the 
suspicions of the governor and the general. Further- 
more, if the people themselves had shown any luke- 
warmness towards General Jackson upon his arrival, 
they would have been largely justified. Their defenses 
had been inexcusably neglected by the national govern- 
ment up to the last moment. When a commanding of- 
ficer was finally sent to them, he was a general of mi- 
litia who had as yet met no such enemy as now faced 
him, but had dealt only with Indians and the feeble, 
unenthusiastic forces of Spain in Florida. The event 
proved that Jackson was the right man for the defense, 
but neither the national government which sent him nor 
the people who so completely gave him their confident 



THE WAR OF 1812 281 

support were sure of this until his own energetic action 
and final success revealed his fitness. While the first 
fight was taking place on the evening of December 23, 
a rumor had gotten about the city that Jackson had left 
orders to blow up the magazines and burn the city to the 
ground in case he was unable to check the British, so 
that the invaders might reap only such a barren victory 
as Napoleon had gained of the Russians in his advance 
upon Moscow. It was feared that the burning of the city 
would induce the slaves to burn plantations in the outly- 
ing parishes and massacre the defenseless whites. Most of 
the members of the legislature were now in active service, 
but a few whose civil duties held them in the city met 
every day merely to effect an adjournment. In the in- 
formal discussion which took place in the lobbies among 
these members, disapproval of Jackson's reported order 
to fire the city was expressed. Mr. Duncan, one of Jack- 
son's volunteer aides, had falsely reported to the general 
on the 28th that the Assembly was debating the ques- 
tion of surrendering to the British, and that Governor 
Claiborne wished to know what should be done. Jack- 
son, in his usual rough-and-ready manner, told Duncan 
that he did not believe the report, but that he might tell 
Claiborne to blow up the legislature if he caught them 
at any such business. Duncan went back to the city 
with the tale that Jackson wished the Assembly Hall to 
be closed. The House was closed and sentinels placed 
at the doors to turn away members. 

This misunderstanding, which has been much garbled 
in historical account, greatly to the discredit of Louisiana 
and its Assembly, continued after the retreat of the Brit- 
ish, and the later conduct of General Jackson was utterly 
"unjustifiable after the energetic defense and explanation 
made by a committee of the legislature. He received a 
letter from Admiral Cochrane, on February 13, announ- 
cing that peace had been signed between England and 
the United States. He refused to believe this, de- 



282 LOUISIANA 

clined to release the city from martial rule, and ordered 
redoubled vigilance. On February 22, news came from 
Charleston confirming the intelligence, but Jackson still 
refused to give credence to it and maintained his rigid 
control. Much discontent was expressed by the volun- 
teers. Work had been completely suspended, commerce 
and trade checked, and many families were in distressing 
want. The men were, therefore, eager to be discharged. 
Moreover, some French subjects who had volunteered 
now demanded their release. This they finally obtained 
by getting certificates of their nationality from Consul 
Tousard. Jackson, however, complained that this priv- 
ilege was abused, and ordered the consul and all the 
Frenchmen who had received certificates to leave the 
city. Northern papers now arrived full of news of peace 
between the nations, and yet Jackson maintained his 
stubborn attitude. On March 3, Louis Louallier, a mem- 
ber of the legislature, published a vehement protest in 
the '' Courrier de la Louisiane.'^ Jackson ordered Loual- 
lier to be arrested and court-martialed as a spy. Judge 
Hall, of the United States District Court, granted a writ 
of habeas corpus for Louallier and was himself arrested 
for aiding the ^' mutiny. '^ Both men were confined in 
the barracks ; the clerk of the court was threatened by 
Jackson when he insisted that his duty compelled him 
to issue the writ ordered by Judge Hall, and the mar- 
shal of the court was similarly threatened in case he 
served the writ. An official messenger now arrived from 
Washington to announce the conclusion of the terms of 
peace, but unfortunately, by some accident, the correct 
packet had not been given him, and a message destined 
elsewhere had been given him by mistake. There was 
no doubt of the truth of the news, but Jackson main- 
tained that he had not yet been officially informed, and 
that martial law would still prevail. Dick, the United 
States District Attorney, applied to Judge Joshua Lewis 
for a writ of habeas cor2ous for Judge Hall. The writ 



THE WAR OF 1812 283 

was granted, and Jackson ordered both Dick and Lewis 
to be arrested, but soon countermanded the order. On 
March 7, Louallier was tried as a spy before Major- 
General Gaines and acquitted. Jackson now saw no 
chance of convicting Hall, so released him and rescinded 
his order in regard to the French citizens. On March 15 
the delayed dispatches from Washington reached him, 
and as he was therein ordered by the President to pardon 
all military offenses, he availed himself of this order to 
retire as gracefully as possible from the difficulties into 
which he had gotten himself. 

On March 21, Jackson was himself brought to trial 
before Judge Hall for contempt of court and fined 
$1000. The fine was paid on the spot, and partisans 
of the general drew his carriage from the court house to 
the Exchange CofFee-House, where he was toasted, and 
where he made a conciliatory speech. 

The people were satisfied. In every respect they had 
been vindicated, on the field of battle and in the halls of 
justice. Against prejudice, they had won the praise of 
Claiborne and Jackson. President Madison had assured 
them of his ''sensibility to the decided and honorable 
proof they had given of their attachment and devotion 
to the Union, and of their manly support of the rights 
of their country. '^ The Congress of the United States 
unanimously and by special resolution praised them in 
the highest t^ms. 



CHAPTEE XII 

POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC TROUBLES LEADING TO 

SECESSION 

After the war, the State settled itself to the task of 
internal development along the lines laid down by the 
slowly increasing influence of Americanism. At first it 
was the struggle of the newer ideals represented by the 
Anglo-Saxon newcomers against the dominant ideals and 
men of the older Latin civilization ; then an uncertain, 
easily displaced equilibrium between the forces ; finally 
the prevalence of a modified Americanism in all things 
save in some traits of communal character which even 
to-day distinguish the true native of southern Louisiana, 
at least, from the rest of his fellow citizens in the United 
States. When Governor Claiborne relinquished his office 
after thirteen years of tenure, the candidates represented 
the two races, and even at this first election the name 
of Jacques Villerd gained the office by only a few votes 
over that of Joshua Lewis. 

American politics and parties began th^r work. The 
importance of personality diminishes in the state his- 
tory, and the recorder of that story finds mere leaders, 
— representatives of parties rather than personages of 
striking individuality. There are no more Bienvilles or 
De Vaudreuils. The pen feels no longer the temptation 
to linger over such names as O'Reilly, Galvez, and Casa 
Calvo. 

In the record of the State, also, between the period just 
closed and the time when secession, war, arid reconstruc- 
tion isolated the State from the rest of the Union, the 



TROUBLES LEADING TO SECESSION 285 

history is but little individualized. The record is of in- 
ternal development but little different from that of the 
rest of the country ; the politics the same ; the important 
events merely Louisiana's share in the larger activities 
which concerned the whole nation, and which can be told 
only in the history of the nation and not of any particu- 
lar State. The years may be passed over rapidly in such 
a narrative as the present. 

General Jackson's bold raid into the Spanish province 
of East Florida against the Seminole Indians, in 1818, 
brought about a final treaty with Spain in the following 
year, whereby the boundary questions were formally 
settled. By this treaty the troublesome western line be- 
tween Louisiana and Texas was definitely fixed at the 
Sabine River. Some years elapsed, however, before the 
troubles of the border were completely settled. Many of 
the privateers and smugglers that had been driven from 
Barataria formed a settlement under Jean Lafitte at Gal- 
veston on the Texas coast and continued their operations 
from this point until finally dispersed by the United 
States government in 1820. 

In 1820, Thomas Boiling Eobertson became governor 
of Louisiana. During his administration some attempt 
was made to systematize public education in the State. 
Very little support was given to this work until 1845, 
and public schools, in the real sense of the word, were 
practically non-existent until that time. Little attention 
was paid to primary education, and legislative support 
was given only to institutions such as the College of 
Orleans and others similar to it in different parts of the 
State. There were many good private schools in New 
Orleans, and many competent tutors and governesses 
conducted the preparatory training before the customary 
voyage to France. The College of Orleans had been in- 
corporated in 1805, but sufficient funds had not been raised 
to open it until 1811. Gayarre, in his " Fernando de Le- 
mos," has given a lively description of this picturesque 



286 LOUISIANA 

seat of learning. The college was broken up in 1826 by 
the appointment of the famous French revolutionist 
Lakanal as principal. The girls of New Orleans depended 
for many years upon governesses, tutors, and the convent 
of the Ursulines. A priests' college was established at 
Grand Coteau in the Attakapas country. At Jackson in 
East Feliciana Parish was the College of Louisiana ; the 
College of Jefferson was established in St. James Parish j 
and in 1835 a medical college was chartered in New 
Orleans. Grammar schools had been established in the 
parishes in 1811, but the State contributed for some time 
only $600 a year to each parish for their support, and 
the system was ineffectual. It was not until 1845 that 
the bequest of John McDonough made a system of com- 
mon schools practicable. The old patrician civilization, 
founded upon a basis of slavery, was unfavorable to the 
growth of education among the unprivileged classes, 
though it fostered the highest degree of intellectual devel- 
opment among the upper. 

In 1824, Henry Johnson was elected governor. His 
administration was occupied chiefly by a continuance of 
troubles on the Sabine frontier and questions of state 
politics. In 1825, the state capital was changed from New 
Orleans to Donaldsonville. 

Pierre Derbigny became governor in 1828. During the 
short period of his office he attempted to reach a solution 
of the general discontent and loss caused by the fact that 
the United States still refused to make disposition of the 
twenty-five million acres of public lands held vacant from 
the time of the cession, thus checking immigration and 
the spread of population to the detriment of the pros- 
perity of the State. Governor Derbigny was thrown from 
his carriage and killed in 1829. Armand Beauvais and 
Jacques Dupre, successive presidents of the Senate, acted 
in turn until A. B. Boman was elected governor in 1831. 
New Orleans was again made the capital of the State. 
During his term Louisiana was twice visited by the plague 



TROUBLES LEADING TO SECESSION 287 

of Asiatic cholera, which ravaged a great portion of Eu- 
rope and America at this time. 

E. D. White became governor in 1835. It was during 
this time that Louisiana suffered its share of the national 
infliction of " Bankomania," with the result that fourteen 
banks in ^N'ew Orleans suspended specie payment and 
the city was forced to issue and authorize corporations to 
issue bills varying in value froni one bit (the Spanish 
escalin or 12^ cents) to four dollars. The new tariff had, 
moreover, so depreciated the value of sugar that most of 
the planters abandoned its cultivation and turned to the 
raising of cotton. The cotton crop for 1837 was 225,000 
bales. 

In 1839, Koman was elected to his second term. 
Banking and financial troubles continued during this 
term. Imprisonment for debt was abolished in 1840. 

In 1843, Alexandre Mouton became governor. The 
constitution adopted in 1845 attempted to establish a 
proper system of registration for voters, as the troubles 
growing out of the presidential election of 1840 had fully 
proven the old system defective. 

In 1845, Isaac Johnson was elected governor. Dur- 
ing this administration the aftermath of the long series 
of border disputes was reaped. Texas had remained a 
part of the now independent country of Mexico, but 
many Americans believed that the act of cession of 
Louisiana entitled the United States to this territory. 
Many Americans had moved into Texas and settled there. 
After the failure of the United States in its attempts to 
purchase Texas, that province, in 1835, declared its in- 
dependence and asked for admission to the United States. 
When this was done, after considerable opposition from 
the non-slaveholding States, in 1845, war followed be- 
tween the United States, and Mexico. General Zachary 
Taylor, who had been living on his estate near Baton 
Rouge, was sent to the frontier with a small army. 
Louisiana felt the liveliest interest in the war. The 



288 LOUISIANA 

legislature at once voted one hundred thousand dollars 
for the support of General Taylor's force,, and volunteers 
rushed to arms. In this war Major G. T. Beauregard 
won his first military reputation. This war was the natu- 
ral and inevitable consequence of the acquisition of Lou- 
isiana and the Mississippi Valley, and the victory of 
the United States committed the country still further 
to its course of territorial expansion. Heir to the ambi- 
tion and hopes of the pioneers of France as well as to the 
territory they won, the American nation had now fol- 
lowed the path of its destiny to the Pacific Ocean. 

In 1850, Joseph Walker was elected governor of the 
State. A constitutional convention was held in 1852 to 
make the constitution of the State more democratic. The 
judges of the Supreme Court were removed from the 
governor's appointing power, and these and most state 
offices made elective. The whole policy of this instru- 
ment was to limit the power of the governor and make 
as many offices directly dependent upon popular election 
as possible. The capital was now established at Baton 
Rouge. 

Paul Hebert, president of the constitutional conven- 
tion, was elected governor in 1853. 

In 1856, Eobert C. Wicklifi'e became governor. His 
was a time of turbulent politics and bitter feeling. The 
position of New Orleans made it the resort of revolu- 
tionists and filibusters, who had their eyes upon strug- 
gling republics of Central and South America. The 
attempt of Lopez, Crittenden, and their associates to 
cause a revolution in Cuba is noteworthy in the history 
of American filibustering. The expedition had many 
sympathizers in New Orleans among Cuban refugees, 
and when the news of the tragic end of the undertak- 
ing reached New Orleans, a small riot took place at the 
Spanish Consulate. State politics were in a disastrous 
condition. In the words of Governor Wicklifi'e : '' It is 
a well-known fact that, at the two last general elections, 



TROUBLES LEADING TO SECESSION 289 

many of the streets and approaches to the polls were 
completely in the hands of organized ruffians, who com- 
mitted acts of violence on multitudes of naturalized 
fellow citizens who dared to venture to exercise the right 
of suffrage. Thus nearly one third of the registered vot- 
ers of Kew Orleans have been deterred from exercising 
their highest and most sacred prerogatives.^' The trouble 
grew out of the habit of extending the privilege of suf- 
frage too easily to foreigners who, by their ignorance, 
were not prepared to exercise it with intelligence, and 
consequently were at the disposal of the unprincipled 
politicians of any party which might care to buy votes 
of them or hire them for acts of violence and intimida- 
tion. The opposition, or native American party, was 
driven also to the employment of force. At the time of 
the municipal election in New Orleans in June, 1858, a 
body of armed men, acting under orders of a Vigi- 
lant Committee, took possession of the court house and 
arsenal at Jackson Square, barricaded the streets, and 
assembled a force of about a thousand men. The native 
American party also armed its members, took station in 
Lafayette Square, and planted cannon. Fortunately, cool 
counsel prevailed, and a quiet election followed. The 
native American candidate, Gerard Stith, was elected 
mayor over G. T. Beauregard, the candidate of the other 
faction. Such discords were the order of the day in every 
State of the Union, and may be considered among the 
special privileges of a government by the people, such 
as ours. There was more serious trouble, however, to be 
met with, trouble which nothing but war and the uproot- 
ing of the very basis of Southern civilization might cure. 
There had always been, in the United States, men of 
conservative mind who had opposed the rapid acquisition 
of territory, which was the policy of the people and their 
real leaders. It will be remembered that the acquisition 
of the Mississippi Valley had been a matter of sheer 
necessity to the whole nation, though the demands for its 



290 ' ' LOUISIANA 

possession came from the people of the South and West ; 
and yet statesmen of the North and East, from New 
England especially, opposed first the acquisition of the 
valley and finally the admission of Orleans Territory as 
the State of Louisiana. The Mexican war of 1845, the 
annexation of Texas, and then of the vast tracts of land 
west of the E,ocky Mountains to the Pacific, were but 
the sequel, the logical outcome of the Louisiana Pur- 
chase; yet again, in these cases, the cry of the conserva- 
tive was lifted in warning lest the widening of the coun- 
try exaggerate its internal weakness, lest the introduction 
of alien races produce dissension in the national nature 
itself, and lest the vast distances and isolated commu- 
nities resulting from this immense increase of territory 
prevent the national government from exercising any 
centralized control or from binding the States together in 
a union of common interests. The view expressed by 
Coleridge ^ was held not only by many Europeans but 
by many Americans. He said : " The possible destiny of 
the United States of America — as a nation of a hun- 
dred millions of freemen — stretching from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, living under the laws of Alfred, and 
speaking the language of Shakespeare and Milton, is an 
august conception. '^ Such, indeed, was the hope which 
had led the advocates of expansion, like a pillar of fire, 
ever westward. Yet people of both New and old Eng- 
land accepted Coleridge's qualification of this splendid 
vision : " The Union will be shaken almost to disloca- 
tion whenever a very serious question between the States 
arises. The American Union has no centre, and it is im- 
possible now to make one. The more they extend their 
iDorders into the Indians' land, the weaker will the na- 
tional cohesion be." He was right. The country had 
never been a unit. The States had entered the compact 
grudgingly, and had jealously refused to grant to a na- 
tional government any privileges that might interfere 
1 Table Talk, 1833. 



TROUBLES LEADING TO SECESSION 291 

with their rights as ^^ free and independent States." The 
North and the East had at first been the most coy about 
entering the national compact, and more than once dif- 
ferences of sectional interest had roused threats of seces- 
sion from that quarter. Yet necessity had for some time 
been impelling this portion of the country to desire a 
more centralized government, and there were forces at 
work throughout the nation to bring this about. Time 
alone, with the spread of the railroad and the telegraph, 
could bring the distant sections so close together as to 
unify their interests to any great extent, and the country 
was yet in crude process of evolution towards this end. 
It was mere necessity, and no consciously formed and 
purely rational policy, which finally committed the whole 
of the North and East to a support of the national 
tendency towards a strongly centralized government, 
whereas they had formerly opposed such a tendency 
when it conflicted with sectional interests. It was mere 
necessity which finally solidified the South into opposi- 
tion to this tendency until war and destruction had vio- 
lently removed the cause of most acute disagreement. 
It is at the present day becoming possible to consider all 
these violently agitated questions and their bloody settle- 
ment by trial of battle from a point of view which in- 
cludes the ultimate destiny of the nation as a whole, and 
which regards the entire conflict as a process of organic 
evolution towards an end as yet so far distant in the 
future that the instinctive and apparently discordant 
forces at work in the process sink into individual insig- 
nificance and fall into prospective harmony. The multi- 
tudinous needs and activities of the people of the coun- 
try combined at the point of crisis into two opposing 
forces, neither of which alone contained the final destiny 
of the nation. The complexity of these diverse tenden- 
cies, each based upon the natural needs of a portion of 
the nation, represent the process of difi'erentiation which 
inevitably accompanies all organic growth. Their con- 



292 LOUISIANA 

flict was equally inevitable before there could be dis- 
cerned, in this complexity and divergence, the tendency 
towards a higher organic unity. If the process might be 
viewed impartially, as a biologist views the differentia- 
tion and development of special organs in an embryonic 
animal organism, there would be as little imputation of 
praise or blame to any of the special forces at work as 
the scientist puts upon the special organs if at first they 
fail to cooperate as efficiently as the needs of the organ- 
ism demand. 

There were great racial, economic, and commercial 
differences between the Northeast and the Southwest, 
differences of policy, differences of interest, differences of 
ideal; but the fundamental reason at bottom of the 
diverse growth of the two sections was the presence of a 
large negro population in the one and its absence in the 
other. We have already seen how the conditions under 
which Louisiana had been colonized had forced African 
slave-labor upon it. It has been indicated how the na- 
ture of things made this institution profitable from the 
beginning, and finally the very basis of the prosperity of 
the State. In spite of a certain amount of commercial 
prosperity, and in spite of its position at the gateway of 
the Mississippi Valley, New Orleans had not fulfilled the 
predictions of its prophets. As long as the upper valley 
depended upon the river as a means of transportation, 
New Orleans might hope to be its chief port ; but the 
growth of railroads and the superior commercial activity 
of Northern ports had rapidly reduced the importance of 
New Orleans as a shipping point, except for the one 
staple, — cotton. The State, like the rest of the South, 
was rich in natural resources, mineral as well as agricul- 
tural ; navigable waterways made the vast timber-lands 
accessible, and no port in the world was more kindly 
planned by nature for an extensive trade ; but all im- 
pulse and tradition had turned the energies of the State 
towards agriculture. The fact that a large portion of its 



TROUBLES LEADING TO SECESSION 293 

soil was admirably adapted to the production of cotton 
and that this crop was profitable, especially by slave cul- 
tivation, committed a great part of the inhabitants either 
to cotton-planting or to handling and exporting it. Sugar, 
rice, and tobacco likewise demanded cultivation upon the 
plantation system. The South had long seen the danger 
that might in time arise from the presence of an infe- 
rior race at the very heart of its civilization. There had 
been an early tendency in Virginia and North Carolina 
to abolish the institution of slavery, and men like Wash- 
ington and Jefferson were morally opposed to it. In 
these States slavery was less of a necessity than in the 
Gulf States, and it was in the cotton belt that slavery 
became inevitable and was perpetuated. 

Granted, then, the unavoidable presence of the Afri- 
can, it became necessary to adjust legally this alien mass 
to the Caucasian civilization into which it had been 
drawn in such a way that the highest institutions of 
the higher race might be least affected by this degrad- 
ing element. The instinct of racial pride, so strong in 
the Anglo-Saxon, wherever he may come in contact with 
an inferior race, suggested the one practical solution of 
the problem, — that of keeping the black effectually 
under the white. In spite of the abstract moral wrong 
inherent in human slavery, the testimony of fact seems 
to be that this method of humane control was practically 
better, both for white and black, than the reconstruction 
method of attempting to raise the negro to a position of 
superiority, and better for the black at least, than the 
present plan of forcing the negro, both North and South, 
by a legal equality into a competition with the superior 
white, which he cannot survive. 

Slavery, then, lay at the basis of the difference between 
the Northern and Southern sections of the country. This 
meant that the South would be agricultural, could have 
no large industrial classes and no manufactures of any 
great extent, that an aristocracy would develop at the 



294 LOUISIANA 

expense of the rest of the people, that the general in- 
ternal development of the country would be slow, that 
in financial and economic questions the interest of the 
planters would cause them to demand state banks and 
favor unrestricted foreign trade. Slavery, having failed 
to be profitable at the North, had been of course aban- 
doned there, and the energies of that section turned 
chiefly towards manufactures or the raising of such crops 
as might be profitable to the holders of smaller tracts of 
land. The Northeast, then, was committed to the reverse 
policy of a national banking system, encouragement of 
domestic manufactures by high tariffs on foreign imports, 
and to internal improvement of rivers and harbors. In 
one respect and in one part of the North, slavery received 
strong support. Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton 
gin and the rapid growth of cotton mills in New Eng- 
land committed that section to the support of Southern 
slavery, and strongly encouraged its extension, just as, at 
the present time, these same mills encourage the still 
worse slavery of child-labor in the same industry. More- 
over, the slave trade had been carried on almost exclu- 
sively by New England seamen, especially from Rhode 
Island, and the slave-driver and dealer was almost inva- 
riably a man from the North, as such a person lost caste 
in the South, and was looked upon with contempt. Thus, 
at the beginning, the North was implicated with the 
South in the perpetuation of the system. 

The form of life developed in such a State as Louisi- 
ana, and the patriarchal structure of society resultant 
therefrom, have been already sketched. The outwardly 
harsh aspect was hard for the alien observer to reconcile 
with the true kindliness and charm of the inner life. 
Out of the rich, decomposing soil of slavery flowered in 
the privileged classes all the open-handed and large- 
hearted virtues, cordiality, kindness, hospitality, bravery, 
and independence. If intense pride, sensitiveness, and 
high spirit were also developed, these were tempered, in 



TROUBLES LEADING TO SECESSION 295 

the best types, by an unfailing courtesy and a delicate 
sense of personal honor. The men of this class turned 
to the law as the one profession and to oratory as the one 
art. Generations of application to this art and this pro- 
fession produced a succession of statesmen who were able, 
in spite of a numerical minority, to direct the national 
government for many years. Their creed was substantially 
that of the founders of the republic and was markedly 
opposed to a too strongly centralized -national government. 
That politically this creed did not advance in some re- 
spects with the changing needs of the country at large 
was due to the necessities which weighed upon the South 
and to the general tendency of American politics to an 
increasing sectionalism until the crisis of the Civil War. 
In the period of American history succeeding the War 
of 1812, when the country was for a time less concerned 
with international questions and before national or sec- 
tional issues assumed very important proportions, the 
parties divided upon questions of preference for particu- 
lar candidates rather than upon principles. This was the 
opportunity for such leaders as were produced by the 
South and West, Their success soon developed a strong 
opposition, which was not slow to attempt to check any 
further advances of the Southern party towards control of 
the government. Thus the question of prohibiting or 
permitting slavery in newly admitted States was vital to 
the future preponderance of either party, and was bitterly 
fought out in the cases of Missouri, Texas, Kansas, and 
Nebraska. The war with Mexico turned largely upon 
this issue, as is shown by the fact that twice as many 
volunteers went to the war from the South as from the 
North. The bitter tariff debates between 1828 and 1833 
further divided the country upon points of sectional inter- 
est, and under all points of difference lay the question 
of African slave-labor as a fundamental cause. The moral 
question of slavery had hitherto been considered perhaps 
less at the North than at the South, for the South had 



296 LOUISIANA 

naturally more to fear from influence in this direction. 
Those who advocated abolition upon abstract or moral 
grounds at the North were held in but little considera- 
tion. Phillips and Garrison were mobbed by their own 
people. Northern interest had not been sufficiently 
aroused, and the abolitionist was two vague in his theo- 
ries, too regardless of practical consequences, to appeal 
upon merely ethical grounds to such practical minds as 
those of the majority of his fellow citizens. Incendiary 
editorials, speeches, and resolutions caused bitter feeling 
and roused strong resentments at the South, but little 
beyond this was accomplished. The boldness, not to say 
lawlessness, of the more fanatical of the abolitionists 
called forth retaliatory measures. Persons from the North 
were caught in Louisiana attempting to incite the negroes 
to insurrection, and the legislature passed laws laying 
the heaviest penalty upon such dangerous offenses. In 
the South, the general impression prevailed that all abo- 
litionists were either fanatics hostile to law, order, and 
the integrity of the white race, or canting hypocrites who 
pocketed the funds they raised from hysterical audiences. 
Consequently the less conservative among the South- 
erners, without considering the question with more im- 
partiality than did the abolitionists themselves, flamed 
into hatred of everything Northern and began to preach 
secession — at first mere peaceable withdrawal from the 
Union. Webster, in the speech of 1850 already referred 
to, foresaw the futility of this movement as clearly as he 
saw the folly of the rash methods pursued by the aboli- 
tionists. He saw as did all conservative men. North and 
South, that misunderstanding and inconsiderate enmity 
were hurrying the country to civil war. " Secession ! 
Peaceable secession ! " he said. ^' Sir, your eyes and mine 
are never destined to see that miracle. The dismember- 
ment of this vast country without a convulsion ! . . . Sir, 
nobody can look over the face of this country at the pre- 
sent moment — nobody can see where its population is 



TROUBLES LEADING TO SECESSION 297 

most dense and growing — without being ready to admit, 
and compelled to admit, that, ere long, America will be 
in the valley of the Mississippi. Well, now, sir, I beg 
to inquire what the wildest enthusiast has to say on the 
possibility of cutting off that river, and leaving free States 
at its source and branches, and slave States down near 
its mouth ? " 

But finally the abolitionist at the North and the 
secessionist at the South won political support, when it 
was seen that political capital might be made of this 
inflammable stufi". The zeal of the emancipation orator 
was turned against the Eastern manufacturer who profited 
from slavery, and therefore found excuses for its exist- 
ence. The movement became popular and paying. The 
literary tribe joined the hue and cry, and many a rhyme- 
ster who later stayed safe at home when the fighting 
began, and dared not risk the shedding of his precious 
blood, became a veritable Tyrtseus in advance of per- 
sonal danger, shed his ink like water in the cause of the 
oppressed slave, and waxed loud in his imprecations of 
WTath upon the head of the ruthless master. The most 
ignorant and preposterous opinions and charges passed 
current, and the most violent utterances were received 
and encouraged in the excitement by really good and 
harmless people, as feeling grew hotter and judgment 
blinder. The gratuitous insults heaped upon the South, 
the vaporings of Mrs. Stowe, and the incendiary verses 
of the Quaker poet, had the inevitable effect of arousing 
equally unreasoning resentment. At first the negro was 
viewed by the distant abolitionist as a down trodden, 
simple creature, faithful as the dog, forgiving the hand 
that lashed him, starved and brutalized, and hunted, if 
he sought to escape, by pleasure parties of ladies and 
gentlemen with horses, hounds, horns, and all the pan- 
oply of fox-coursing. ■"• Maudlin sentimentality, kindled 
to frenzy by such tales and fanatic rhetoric, magnified 
^ See Whittier^s Hunters of Men. 



298 LOUISIANA 

the wrongs and virtues of the slave, till he became a 
creature of physical and moral beauty, as his master 
became a monster of vice and atrocity. Owing to lack of 
knowledge, these attacks did not strike the weakest, the 
most blameworthy side of slavery. Only the Southerner, 
only the holder of slaves, knew the great, the real danger 
that threatened not the negro but the white man. It is a 
fact beyond dispute that the negro had been raised from 
African savagery to a condition of comparative civiliza- 
tion. From the negro and for the negro, if left to him- 
self and his Southern master, there had been little to 
fear. If he were worthy and industrious, or if he showed 
any of the higher stirrings of humanity, it was by no 
means an impossible task to win his freedom. The 
planter, whatever might be his regret of the fact, could 
see no possibility of abolishing slavery altogether without 
bringing ruin upon his whole class ; but many an indi- 
vidual master freed his slaves, and many hoped that time 
and wise legislation might bring about the solution of 
the troublous question of bondage and its moral responsi- 
bility. Nevertheless, a brief glance at the laws of such a 
State as Louisiana will suffice to show that the people 
were alive to the real source of danger, and were con- 
scious of the fact that is being more fully recognized 
to-day, namely, that the real negro is yet almost a 
negligible factor in the problem, but that the white man 
has to deal with the mulatto in more w^ays than one. 

It will be remembered that the method of settlement 
adopted by the French in Louisiana, and the nature of 
the colonists themselves, had made slavery imperative, 
and that the institution had been forced upon the people 
to an extent which had, even at the outset, alarmed far- 
seeing minds. In addition to the negroes imported by 
the Company of the West, many lawless and degenerate 
whites had been deported by the Company from France 
to the colony, and in many cases, despite legal attempts 
to prevent it, a mixing of the races had occurred. This 



TROUBLES LEADING TO SECESSION 299 

question has never been fairly viewed, and therefore not 
understood outside of the State itself. A class of quad- 
roons grew up with alarming rapidity, and, by a process 
of natural selection which may be easily inferred, devel- 
oped just those characteristics which made it dangerous. 
Many of these quadroons, being endowed with superior 
mental qualities and ambitions which were impossible to 
the pure negro, won their freedom, and demanded a place 
in the civilization of the whites. To the men of this 
class, only positions of inferiority were open. Discontent 
was the result, and when trouble occurred among the 
slaves, or between slaves and masters, it was almost 
invariably fomented by the mulattoes. The women of 
that class were the source of a yet more serious danger. 
They •despised the negro as an inferior, and those of 
them who were ambitious regarded alliances with even 
men of their own class as limiting. Marriages between 
free women of color, even those from whom all repulsive 
African traits had been eliminated, and white men of 
any class were forbidden by law and condemned by the 
instinct and sentiment of a majority of the people. The 
quadroon woman, then, who possessed a certain amount 
of physical attraction, had but one means in her power 
to gain influence or gratify any ambition she might pos- 
sess. It was unfortunate for the consistency of defense, 
which the white race of the South has always made for 
its racial integrity and the maintenance of its natural 
superiority, that a weak side was left open upon w^hich 
the disintegrating influence of the comely quadroon 
woman worked insidious destruction. It can be readily 
seen that her hereditary temperament was of necessity 
lascivious and unmoral, as she was the product of the 
lust and weakness of two races. It is not to be denied, 
also, that there were many white men, even among those 
whose position should have checked them, who weakened 
the cause of their own race by yielding to the lower 
temptation offered by the condition of these women. 



300 LOUISIANA 

From this cause a further complication and misunder- 
standing arose. Many children of such unions were sent 
to France or the Northern States, were educated, and won 
social position where their antecedents were not known. 
Many of them assumed the names of their white fathers, 
the same names borne also, perhaps, by the purely white 
children of the same father's legal wife. As this became 
known, the belief spread among persons not in possession 
of all the facts, that the process of miscegenation was 
general in such a State as Louisiana, and that the whole 
white race was tainted. That the purity of the white race 
was maintained by its women, even to the lowest in 
social position, need scarcely be asserted as a fact self- 
evident. That the white male was responsible for an 
infusion of white blood into the inferior race with dis- 
astrous consequences is a fact that cannot be denied or 
excused. The fact might be explained by a full exami- 
nation of all the conditions which made it possible, and 
by remembering that, until the negro had made such 
dangerous use of the franchise and license granted him 
after the Civil War, there was not the same feeling of 
racial hostility which to-day makes such conditions im- 
possible, but no palliation can be found for the weakness 
which threatened at one time to undermine the white 
race, and which injured the cause of that race in the eyes 
of the world. 

This danger from the mulatto, both male and female, 
and from the white man who was copartner with them, 
was recognized in Louisiana long before the abolition 
agitation began at the North, and the best minds were 
directed against it. The evil was being diminished, yet 
so apprehensive at times M^ere the people that the legis- 
lature of Louisiana was once almost at the point of in- 
flicting indiscriminate banishment upon all free people of 
color. Had the settlement of the question been left to 
the State, the adjustment of the difficulty would have 
been effected, if at all, by the bringing to bear of moral 



TROUBLES LEADING TO SECESSION 301 

restraint upon certain white men and by preventing the 
mulatto from acquiring any political influence. The matter 
held a far more serious import for the South than it 
could possibly hold for the North, and therefore the 
violence of the abolition party, especially as the most 
strenuous advocates of the negro ignored the practical 
aspects of the case, was taken by the South as mere in- 
terference. The South was in reality less concerned with 
the perpetuation of slavery than with the far more im- 
portant problem of racial integrity and assured white 
supremacy. The violence of the secession party, which 
did almost as much as the abolition movement to arouse 
bitterness and prevent calm consideration, may be under- 
stood when hundreds of speakers and pamphleteers in 
the North sought to overthrow the institution by which 
alone the South believed it could for the present control 
the negro. The assistance which John Brown's raid re- 
ceived from Northern people was enough to make many 
people at the South believe that the North would rejoice 
if the slaves should rise and massacre their masters and 
outrage their mistresses. But even this was as nothing 
to the resentment roused by the appearance of tracts 
advocating, as a solution of the race problem, the very 
course of miscegenation against which every feeling of 
the South was directing all the opposition of its instincts 
of self-preservation. To recall the lengths to which 
fanaticism carried the negrophile on this point, one need 
only to refer to such pamphlets as Croly's " Miscegena- 
tion," which appeared during the war and is the extreme 
type, the culmination, of much similar theorizing that 
preceded it. It had the indorsement of men like Wen- 
dell Phillips and Theodore Tilton, editor of the " Inde- 
pendent." The author not only advocated the mixture of 
the races, predicted that the physically superior black 
race would absorb the physically and morally inferior 
white, hailed this as a '' consummation devoutly to be 
wished," and perverted the teachings of science and iso- 



302 LOUISIANA 

lated lines of the poets into sophistical support of his 
fantastic theory, but, after many more nauseating pages, 
committed the one unforgivable blasphemy, that against 
the purity of the Southern women. 

It was of such fuel as this that the secessionist kin- 
dled his fires. It is not to be wondered at that, as the 
crisis drew nearer, reason and logic were cast to the winds 
by both sides, that men of conservative tendencies were 
thrust aside, and that those leaders who most fully 
represented sectional interests assumed the direction of 
the people. The impartial student of history will cease 
to find henceforth in the debates and arguments of the 
various parties anything like consistency. 

During Governor Wickliffe's term of office, Louisiana, 
as every other Southern State, was torn and disturbed by 
conflicting opinions ; and when, in the fateful year 1860, 
Thomas Overton Moore became governor, there was little 
for the executive to do but drift with the current. The 
approaching presidential election was felt by all to be 
the final crisis. There was still a chance for conserva- 
tism to rule the country, but, on the other hand, extreme 
parties both North and South, with strong appeals to 
sectional and violent feeling, swayed more and more the 
mass of voters. The very existence of the States as a 
Union hinged upon the coming election. It is a mistake 
to attribute threats of secession to the South alone, for 
the extreme party at the North declared that slavery 
must be abolished even at the cost of the destruction of 
the Union ; the Constitution itself was, in the words of 
one abolitionist quoting Isaiah, ^' a covenant with death, 
and an agreement with hell ; " and the future leader of 
the party, Abraham Lincoln, had declared some years 
before upon the floor of Congress, ''Any people any- 
where have the right to rise up and shake off the exist- 
ing government, and form a new one that suits them 
better. . . . Any portion of such people, that can, may 
revolutionize and make their own of so much of the terri- 



TROUBLES LEADING TO SECESSION 303 

tory as they inhabit." In the South, the supposedly 
prevalent doctrine of States' E-ights had not been con- 
sistently adhered to either in the debates over '^ squatter 
sovereignty " or the fugitive slave laws and their viola- 
tion ; and state sovereignty pushed to the extreme of 
secession, though regarded as a constitutional right, had 
been always considered an evil. Now, those who advo- 
cated the secession of the Southern States had the sup- 
port of an apparent necessity. The mere fact that such 
men as Emerson and Longfellow approved John Brown's 
attempt to incite the slaves to murder their masters 
seemed to argue that, if the party representing this im- 
placable hostility to the South obtained power at the 
approaching election, the South could not expect justice 
or humane consideration, and that anarchy, violence, and 
bloodshed would be made the policy of the national 
government. 

The strong opposition which the Democrats in the 
national Senate under the leadership of Jefferson Davis 
brought against Stephen A. Douglas, the strongest 
Northern Democrat, caused a split in that party, and 
resulted in the breaking up of the national convention 
which met in Charleston in April. The Republican party 
met in convention in May, and, uniting upon sharply 
drawn sectional lines, nominated Abraham Lincoln for 
president and Hannibal Hamlin for vice-president. In 
the same month, the remains of the old Whig party met 
in convention. They called themselves the "Constitu- 
tional Union party," as representing the conservative 
elements of both sides, and based their platform upon a 
general statement of principles. This convention nomi- 
nated John Bell, of Tennessee, for president, and Edward 
Everett, of Massachusetts, for vice-president, both men of 
unquestioned integrity and ability, opposed to the vio- 
lence and unreasonableness which had unhappily become 
the order of the day and rendered such an attitude as 
theirs obsolete. The Douglas faction of the Democratic 



304 LOUISIANA 

party assembled in June and nominated Douglas for 
president and H. V. Johnson for vice-president. The 
secession faction of the Democratic party, now completely 
swayed by that fervid orator Yancey, met in June, and 
nominated John C. Breckenridge for president and 
Joseph Lane for vice-president, npon a platform as purely 
sectional as that of the Eepublicans. 

As the time of the general election approached, feeling 
reached a point of tension that was almost unendurable. 
The Constitutional Union party had a strong showing in 
the South, but the fact that such States as Indiana, Ver- 
mont, Maine, and Pennsylvania all went to the Eepub- 
licans in their state elections convinced the South that 
the North would vote for Lincoln. Support was there- 
fore rapidly drawn away from conservatism and united 
with the secessionist party, though fully half the South 
retained hopes that the Union might be preserved. 

The conservative forces were strong in Louisiana. 
Bell's nomination was ratified by a meeting called in 
New Orleans and directed by such men as Bandell Hunt 
and Christian Roselius. In the parade which attended 
this meeting, the " Young Bell Eingers " made their first 
appearance. Opposed to these was the "Young Men's 
Breckenridge and Lane Club. '' They manifested a show 
of enthusiasm which was more military than political. 
In one of their processions appeared the Lane Dragoons, 
ninety young horsemen with black coats, white belts, and 
gold-banded caps. The Bell Eingers held meetings 
throughout the city and filled the air with speeches ; but 
the Breckenridge Club outdid them at this game by se- 
curing the most popular orator of secession, W. L. Yan- 
cey, whom they met in force at the railway station, and 
whose brilliant speech they reinforced with all the power 
of strong lungs and public demonstration. Then, in the 
midst of it all, came the election, on the 7th of November. 

The news of Lincoln's election may have brought joy 
to those whose feelings were raised to the pitch of war; 



TROUBLES LEADING TO SECESSION 305 

but to all those who hoped yet for peace and union the 
news came as a disaster. The Southern Democratic vote 
showed that, had the Douglas and Bell parties fused, the 
party favoring secession would have been outvoted. In 
Louisiana the vote was: for Breckenridge, 22,681; for 
Bell, 20,204; for Douglas, 7625; for Lincoln, none. 
Judging from these figures, one would infer calmness and 
good judgment might yet have ruled the crisis and pre- 
vented the disaster of war; but the violence of feeling 
had gone beyond control, and Lincoln's election united 
the South in an almost solid opposition. But a few days 
after the election Governor Moore called a special session 
of the legislature, to consider the question of secession 
and the possibility of war. The result was the calling of 
a special convention to meet in January. 

What the decision of the convention would be might 
be easily prophesied^ yet conservatism did not cease its 
efforts. Many who were not in favor of absolute seces- 
sion believed in the concerted action of the Southern 
States. This party issued a pamphlet as a sort of plat- 
form, and had strong adherents in New Orleans and es- 
pecially in the parishes of Claiborne, St. Helena, and 
Jackson. The city, however, seemed inclined to outright 
secession. Plaquemines pronounced emphatically for it. 
The younger men were eager for the opportunity to set- 
tle the dispute on the field of battle. The Breckenridge 
and Lane Club became the First Regiment of light in- 
fantry and other political clubs became military, while 
the friends of united Southern action held meetings and 
made speeches. Brigadier-General Tracy assembled the 
state militia, the Crescent Rifles, the Washington Ar- 
tillery, the Chasseurs-a-pied, the Orleans Cadets, the 
Louisiana Guards, the Sarsfield Guards, the Louisiana 
Grays, and sent them to Baton E-ouge. Members of 
the Orleans Battalion of Artillery, the Chasseurs-k-pied, 
the Chasseurs d' Orleans, the Jaegers, and the Lafayette 
Guards were sent down to Forts Jackson and St. Philip. 



306 LOUISIANA 

The Continental Guards took possession of Fort Pike 
and the Rigolets. No resistance was offered by the Fed- 
eral troops in any case. Foreign residents of New Or- 
leans organized small companies to serve as defense and 
to preserve order. 

The resolution of the legislature calling for a con- 
vention to consider the question of secession had been 
ratified by a popular vote of 4258 for secession against 
3978 for united Southern action. Thus instructed, the 
convention met at Baton E-ouge on the 23d of January, 
1861, with Ex-Governor Alexandre Mouton presiding. 
A drafting committee of fifteen presented an ordinance of 
secession, which finally passed the convention by a vote 
of 113 ayes to 17 nays. After the passage of the ordi- 
nance, however, it was signed by 121 delegates. Louisi- 
ana's connection with the United States was formally 
declared dissolved, and a delegation was elected to repre- 
sent the commonwealth at the convention of Southern 
States called to assemble at Montgomery on February 4 
for the purpose of forming a Southern Confederacy. A 
state flag was adopted and unfurled at Baton Bouge. 
On March 21 the convention ratified the Constitution 
of the Confederate States adopted at Montgomery, and 
the State Constitution of 1852 was modified to suit the 
changed conditions. Authorization was given for the en- 
listment of five hundred regulars for four months with pay 
and rations equal to those of the United States army. 

The constitutional right of the State thus to resume 
the powers which the commonwealths had separately 
delegated to the national government cannot be argued 
in this place. An impartial summary of the situation 
seems to reveal that the seceding States had upon their 
side precedent, the old order, and the literal interpreta- 
tion of the Constitution. The North represented the 
new order, and pretended to a spirit higher than the con- 
stitutional compact. That the civilization of the South 
was upon an insecure and dangerous basis for itself and 



TROUBLES LEADING TO SECESSION 307 

for the whole country was the fault of necessity, not of 
choice, a matter of historical growth and not of deliber- 
ately chosen policy. That the real motive of the North, 
as a mass, was political power, and no abstract question 
of right or wrong, was proven by the use which the Ke- 
publican party made of its victory. That the motives of 
the Southern leaders who directed the country in its 
secession policy were equally political is also true. That 
the ultimate result of the war was perhaps the most 
fortunate for the whole country, though this question is 
subject to grave doubt from the purely Southern point 
of view, is due to the working out of a destiny of which 
neither side was conscious in the struggle. 



CHAPTEE XIII 

CIVIL WAR AND DEFEAT 

The first aspect of the war and the policy of the Con- 
federate government drew the Louisiana volunteers to 
distant Virginia or Tennessee, where the first danger 
threatened. Her ablest officers, too, were hurried to the 
front. Braxton Bragg, commander of the state troops, 
Beauregard, product of her own soil and Latin blood, 
Leonidas Polk, her fighting bishoj% assumed direction of 
the earliest battles. The first year of the war hurried by 
at a distance, and the spring of 1862 approached before 
Louisiana was actually threatened with invasion. 

According to the plan which the Federal government 
had adopted for the prosecution of the war, the Missis- 
sippi Valley and New Orleans were of the utmost im- 
portance. The fighting qualities of the Confederates, 
the ability of their leaders, and their first successes, con- 
vinced the leaders of the North that the new country 
could be defeated only by wearing it out and by employ- 
ing every resource of superior wealth and numbers. Con- 
scious of its inferior resources, the South felt that it 
must fight rapidly and could hope to win only by sheer 
military prowess. The North, on the other hand, felt 
that a prolonged war would but increase its strength 
while it weakened that of the Confederates. The Fed- 
eral conduct of the war was such, therefore, as could 
only be accomplished with unlimited resources of wealth 
and a practically unlimited supply of men. The plan 
was to blockade the entire sea-coast and thus cut off the 
Confederacy from foreign trade or communication j to 



CIVIL WAR AND DEFEAT 309 

keep a strong army before Richmond to threaten the 
capital and confine Lee to that district; to advance 
along the Ohio Valley and win the border States ; to 
clear the Mississippi Eiver by means of gunboats, thus 
lopping off the western members of the Confederacy by 
turning the left flank of the enemy ; and finally, when 
the strangling chain of armies had been completed, to 
tighten its coil and crush Lee between overwhelming 
forces on his front, rear, and flank. This plan had been 
slowly and stubbornly prosecuted. The blockade had 
already been effected along a considerable length of the 
coast. The armies of the Ohio Valley had succeeded in 
keeping Bragg out of Kentucky and by sheer weight 
were now pushing him southward towards Shiloh. Fort 
Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cum- 
berland had been captured ; and finally the formidable 
points of New Madrid and Island Number Ten had been 
seized and the Mississippi River thus opened to the Fed- 
erals as far south as Memphis. The strong fortifications 
at Vicksburg and Port Hudson, however, promised to 
effectually block the river to the Federals for some time 
to come, and New Orleans with the Forts Jackson and 
St. Philip closed the entrance from the Gulf. 

Early in the war the necessity of capturing New Or- 
leans had been felt by the government at Washington. 
The place controlled the lower Mississippi ; its capture 
would enable the Federal fleet in the Gulf to cooperate 
with that on the upper river against Baton Rouge, Port 
Hudson, Vicksburg, Natchez, and Memphis ; it was, more- 
over, the most important city of the Confederacy, its only 
commercial centre of great importance, and the only 
place in the South where factories, machine shops, and 
skilled workmen were at all numerous. Into New Or- 
leans, also, ran the Opelousas Railroad, which offered 
transfer to the rich foodstuffs of western Louisiana and 
Texas. It is strange that the Confederate government 
was not equally alive to the importance of New Orleans 



310 LOUISIANA 

and the Mississippi, or aware that the Federal govern- 
ment could not fail to attempt to gain possession of both. 
Since the American occupation, New Orleans, by virtue 
of its position and the ever-increasing river trade, had 
grown so rapidly that in 1840 its population was over 
100,000 and it ranked fourth, after New York, Philadel- 
phia, and Baltimore, as the largest city of the country. 
At the time of the war, the growth of railroads through- 
out the country, the misfortune of yellow fever, and the 
failure of the local business men to adapt themselves to 
the new conditions which removed some of the advan- 
tages bestowed by the old steamboat trade had caused 
New Orleans to lag behind the greater Northern cities in 
commercial importance ; but at the time of the war its 
population was 170,000, and it was still one of the most 
important ports of the world, especially for cotton, the 
backbone of Southern prosperity. The control of New 
Orleans meant the control of the lower Mississippi and 
the rich fields of lower Louisiana. 

General Mansfield Lovell, in command of Department 
No. 1, which included the defenses of New Orleans, had 
been repeatedly called upon to furnish reinforcements to 
General Beauregard in Tennessee, and now, in the spring 
of 1862, had under his orders but 3000 ninety-day militia, 
only 1200 of whom were armed. He had established two 
lines of defense. One, under General Duncan, held the 
forts and earthworks on the river below the city. The 
second, under General M. L. Smith, was to defend Al- 
giers and New Orleans ; the ram Manassas lay in the 
river. A raft of chains and logs had been stretched 
across the river between Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip. 
The force of the river had broken this obstruction, but 
private contributions of citizens had furnished means to 
replace it with a line of boats bound and chained amid- 
ship. This, too, was broken by the river. Meanwhile 
news came that a Federal fleet under Farragut had crossed 
the bar and was preparing to ascend the stream. The 



CIVIL WAR AND DEFEAT 311 

miserable little fleet under Captain Mitchell arrayed itself 
to repel the invaders. These boats were nothing but 
harmless old river steamers rechristened with warlike 
names — The Warrior, The Defiance, The Stonewall 
Jackson, The Resolute. There were three rams, but 
one of these, the Louisiana, was unfinished and took 
no part in the fight. The forts had together but about 
1500 men, few guns, and little ammunition. Farragut 
had eight strong sloops of war, eighteen steam gunboats, 
and twenty-one mortar boats under Commander Porter. 
All these were wooden vessels, of course, and the risk 
to them in the attack upon the forts was considerable. 
In addition to the naval force, 13,000 men, under Gen- 
eral Benjamin F. Butler, accompanied the expedition. 
The fleet carried in all 177 guns. 

By the 16th of April Farragut had gotten all his large 
vessels over the bar and into the river. At the point 
where the forts are situated, the river makes a sharp turn 
and runs almost due east and west. The fleet was thus 
able to approach close to them, and yet remain hidden 
from view behind the thick trees that crown the bend. 
Here Commander Porter anchored his mortar boats and 
began shelling the forts over the tops of the trees in the 
hope of reducing them, as he thought Farragut's plan 
reckless. Farragut intended to run his vessels past the 
forts, break through the obstructions placed across the 
river, and boldly attack New Orleans, though thus com- 
pelled to leave the enemy fortified in his rear. The 
bombardment had such slight efi'ect on the night of the 
20th, that Lieutenant Caldwell, with the two small gun- 
boats Itasca and Pinola, was sent to break up the line of 
dismantled schooners which had again been chained across 
the river. At the greatest risk, this dangerous task was 
successfully accomplished. Then at two o'clock on the 
morning of the 24th, Farragut ordered his fleet to pass 
the forts. Several vessels slipped past Fort Jackson be- 
fore the batteries of the fort opened upon them, but most 



312 LOUISIANA 

of the fleet had to pass through a hail of shot from both 
forts and then grapple with the Confederate flotilla above. 
These were easily destroyed. The iron ram Manassas 
alone was a serious antagonist, but her engines were inef- 
ficient, and unsupported she could do little ; yet she hung 
upon the rear of the fleet as it ascended the river till she 
was finally pounded to pieces by the guns of the Missis- 
sippi. But three of the Confederate vessels remained. 
The unfinished Louisiana lay moored to the shore near 
St. Philip, and two other boats lay under shelter of the 
guns of Fort Jackson. 

The Federal fleet steamed up to New Orleans. On the 
levee citizens had been burning cotton and stores and 
some half-built gunboats. In the smoke and wreckage a 
great crowd had assembled. General Lovell had evac- 
uated the city with all his troops, and no military au- 
thority was left either to resist or surrender to Farragut. 
In spite of the fact that some of the mob on the levee 
showed hostility. Captain Bailey- and Lieutenant Perkins 
landed, went to the City Hall and demanded the 
surrender of the city from Mayor Munroe. The mayor 
replied that he was unable to surrender, as he had no mili- 
tary authority and as no troops remained in the city, but 
that nothing prevented the Federal troops from landing 
and taking possession. Marion Baker was sent by Mayor 
Munroe to explain the situation to Admiral Farragut. 
The City Council was convened on the 26th and a writ- 
ten message, drafted by Pierre Soule, was adopted and 
ordered sent to Farragut. Before this message could 
be copied and presented, Farragut made another demand 
for unqualified surrender, but did not attempt to land. 
Some marines, however, though without his order, 
hoisted over the mint a United States flag, which was 
torn down by a man named Mumford and several others. 
Farragut, becoming impatient of the delay and being un- 
able to occupy the city with Butler and the troops which 
had not yet been able to get by the forts, now threat- 



CIVIL WAR AND DEFEAT 313 

ened to bombard. The mayor again assured him that 
the city was defenseless, and that there was no military 
force to surrender. Finally, on the 30th of April, a small 
force of marines was landed and marched to Lafayette 
Square. Howitzers were planted before the City Hall, 
the state flag taken down and that of the United States 
raised. 

Meanwhile Commander Porter had bombarded the 
forts below the city, and had succeeded in capturing them 
on the 28th ; for the soldiers, learning that Lovell had 
offered no resistance to Farragut at New Orleans, had 
mutinied, fired upon their officers, and caused a surrender. 
General Duncan stated that there was hardly a loyal man 
in either fort save the St. Mary cannoneers. General 
Butler now moved his men up the river on transports, 
garrisoned the captured forts, and proceeded to New 
Orleans. On May 1, 1862, he landed six regiments of 
infantry and some cavalry and artillery, and himself 
entered the city. Butler's reputation had preceded him, 
and the mob that lined the levee and the streets had an 
ugly look. So the general made himself as inconspicuous 
as possible upon the occasion of his triumphal entry, 
walked among the ranks, and betrayed some nervous- 
ness; but the ungainly figure that had not acquired 
enough of the military habit to keep step with the 
troops was marked by many an eye, and many could 
read in the unmistakable lines of that face an ill omen 
for New Orleans. Butler marched to the St. Charles 
Hotel and planted cannon and guards about the build- 
ing. He seized the press of the " True Delta," turned 
out the editor, and issued thence the first of his procla- 
mations, putting the city under strict military rule. 

Butler began his work upon the assumption, to u^e 
his own words (General Order No. 26), that the city 
contained only '' fugitive masses, runaway property burn- 
ers, a whiskey-drinking mob, and starving citizens with 
their wives and children." His object was apparently to 



314 LOUISIANA 

humble and ruin the upper classes, thus elegantly char- 
acterized above in his picturesque style, with the hope 
of winning the favor of the lower. The very wording of 
his first proclamations betrayed the soul of a dangerous 
demagogue rather than a soldier, and the resentment 
■aroused was immediate and universal. His reputation 
for cowardice and corruption had already been estab- 
lished, but the people of New Orleans were soon to have 
practical illustrations of both and were to be further 
subjected to specimens of his pretty wit and vulgar 
facetiousness — traits of the general's character which 
took unusually exasperating forms. John Fiske ex- 
presses this opinion : ^ '^ The selection of such a man for 
such a command was a needless though unintentional 
insult to the conquered city. Where military rule, at 
once stern and just, is required by circumstances, it is 
far better to have a true soldier than an unscrupulous 
politician, bent upon money-making and intrigue." 

Butler assumed his duties at once and prosecuted his 
policy with vigor. The municipal authorities were 
turned out of office. General George F. Shepley was 
appointed Military Commandant of New Orleans, a Pro- 
vost Judge, a Provost Marshal, and his Deputy Marshal 
were appointed. The New Orleans and Opelousas Pail- 
road was seized, thus cutting off from the Confederacy 
its supply of Texas cattle by this route, and affording 
himself the opportunity to operate the road by means 
of United States soldiers, for the pecuniary benefit of 
his brother, who embarked extensively in the cattle 
trade. Mumford was hanged for having torn down the 
United States flag hoisted without orders by marines 
before the city had been formally occupied by Federal 
fences. Men, women, and children were subjected to in- 
sult. One lady, charged with laughing while the funeral 
of a Federal officer was passing, was condemned to two 
years' imprisonment upon Ship Island. Butler then 
1 Mississippi Valley in the Civil War, p. 129. 



CIVIL WAR AND DEFEAT 315 

issued his infamous ^' woman order," No. 28, arrested 
Mayor Monroe for protesting against it, and sent him 
with his secretary, the chief of police, and Judge Ken- 
nedy, to Fort Jackson. Pierre Sould was arrested and 
sent to prison in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor. Men 
and women were arrested indiscriminately and sent to 
hard labor on Ship Island, under negro guards. But- 
ler seized the house, furniture, and plate of General 
Twiggs and established himself there. The property of 
John Slidell was similarly confiscated. Federal officers 
imitated the general's example and made free with the 
property of the ''rebels." In his greed for plunder, But- 
ler overstepped his prudence. He seized $800 that had 
been deposited by the Citizens' Bank with the consul of 
Holland for payment to an Amsterdam firm. He collided' 
with the British and French consuls also. Finally Sec- 
retary of State Seward sent Reverdy Johnson to inves- 
tigate, and ordered Butler to give up the money which 
he had seized from the consul of Holland. 

No interference, however, was offered to his seizures 
of private property or his attempts to chastise those who 
had been the governing classes. His ingenuity in these 
enterprises and the skill with which he added insult to 
injury can be appreciated only by reading his remark- 
able series of General Orders. One of his first measures 
in this direction was to secure a list of merchants who 
had subscribed to a" loan of $1,250,000 to the Con- 
federate government and levy upon each subscriber a 
" tax " of twenty-five per cent of the amount opposite 
his name, for the ostensible purpose of aiding the poor 
of the city. All arms belonging to private citizens were 
seized (Order No. 60), rewards offered for information, 
and any slave offering information of this nature against 
his master was declared free. On the strength of this 
order, houses were rifled and pillaged by the unscrupu- 
lous searchers whom Butler turned loose upon this hunt. 
Finally, by General Order No. 76, all persons, male 



316 LOUISIANA 

and female, over eighteen years of age were required 
to take such an oath of allegiance as was impossible 
to any honest or honorable supporter of the Southern 
cause, or else to register as an enemy and go out of the 
city, leaving behind all property to be seized and con- 
fiscated. Property thus confiscated was sold at auction 
and bought in by the harpies that swarmed in Butler's 
wake. Furthermore, all persons who held in trust any 
real or personal property of any citizen of the Confed- 
erate States were required to surrender that property 
(Order No. 82). Finally, by General Order No. 91, all 
the property of the '^ Lafourche District " that is to say, 
of the district occupied by Federal troops west of the 
Mississippi, except the parishes of Jefferson and Plaque- 
mines, was ordered seized and confiscated. 

General Butler's dealing with the slaves of the State 
is especially interesting. While at Fortress Monroe, he 
had originated the ingenious policy of retaining slaves 
who might come to the Federal camp, on the ground that 
they were " contraband of war," as any other property of 
the Confederates. This policy was extensively carried 
out in Louisiana. Slaves belonging to owners of declared 
allegiance to the United States were returned when they 
escaped to the Federal lines, but slaves of all other 
owners were practically emancipated. The plantations 
thus " deserted '' furnished, later on, rich pasture for 
those whom the Freedmen's Bure'au was created to pro- 
vide for. It was Butler's policy to arm these fugitive 
negroes, form them into regiments, and use them against 
the Confederate forces that still occupied the greater 
portion of the State. These regiments were ostensibly 
composed of free men, but no inquiry was made into the 
actual status of those negroes who had thrown them- 
selves upon the care of the Federal authorities. It was 
thought that the slaves would fight with more bitter- 
ness and ferocity against their former masters than could 
be expected of the white soldiers of the regular army. 



CIVIL WAR AND DEFEAT 317 

The terrible purpose which animated the most bitter 
advocators of such a course is betrayed in the following 
statements of G. S. Denison to Secretary Chase : ^' An 
army of negroes could be made most formidable. They 
could be inspired with a religious enthusiasm as terrible 
and persistent as that of the followers of Mohammed.'^ 
The full horror of this brutal proposition is evident with- 
out comment to any one who realizes that the negro as 
a mass was but little removed from utter savagery and 
who knows what forms the " religious ^' frenzy of savages 
assumes. AVhen one realizes also that all the whites 
within the Federal jurisdiction had been forcibly de- 
prived of arms and that the men of rural Louisiana had 
gone to the distant war, something of the animosity felt 
by the people against the emancipated negro and against 
those who sought to make him the murderer of the white 
race of the South may perhaps be understood. 

General Shepley and the provisional military govern- 
ment established by General Butler exercised a complete 
control over the Departments, but were of course subject 
to the dictation of the commanding general. Had the gov- 
ernment been of a strictly military nature, the ultimate 
outcome might have been better. Unfortunately the men 
concerned in the administration of affairs, even those 
appointed by the government at Washington for the di- 
rection of Federal matters, as in the custom house, for 
example, were chosen for ulterior political motives, and 
the qualities required of them were subservience to the 
administration whip and partisan zeal rather than ability 
or honesty. It is impossible and unnecessary here to 
enter into the details of the corruption set in operation 
during the tinle of Butler's control, although the methods 
then inaugurated had a disastrously important effect upon 
events subsequent to the war. One of the chief evils of 
the time, one of the chief abuses which cast discredit 
upon the whole national government, must be briefly 
mentioned. That General Butler was a soldier and a 



318 LOUISIANA 

politician simply for the purpose of personal dishonest 
gain is well known. The men whom he directly con- 
trolled were of the same stripe. The chief source of 
opposition against Butler finally came from the honest 
men of his own party and the honorable soldiers of his 
own army who had been unwillingly forced to further 
his schemes. An interesting light has been recently 
thrown upon his devious ways by the publication of a 
series of letters from George Denison to Secretary Chase. ^ 
Denison, himself neither better nor worse than the rest 
of the tribe, acted as collector of the port of New Or- 
leans for a time, but was really the steady agent and 
informer of the Secretary of the Treasury. Cotton was 
plentiful and cheap in the State within the Confederate 
lines and provisions were comparatively cheap within the 
Federal lines, while cotton there or in Northern markets 
fetched a high price. This was a golden opportunity for 
the speculator, and there were many who entered the 
business with the connivance of the military authorities. 
Chief among these was " Colonel '' Butler, a brother of 
the general. To a certain extent the Federal government 
had sanctioned the cotton trade with the Confederates, 
but General Butler took an advantage of this policy 
which was never intended by the government. It was 
soon understood in New Orleans that even " rebel " mer- 
chants might gain what they asked from Butler and his 
subordinates by paying for it. An extensive trade sprang 
up between New Orleans and the Confederacy, conducted 
chiefly in schooners on Lake Pontchartrain. The method 
was simple. A merchant would load a ship with provi- 
sions, ostensibly for Matamoras or Vera Cruz, pay a 
commission to General Butler or General Shepley, and 
get permission for his schooner to clear port. Then the 
goods were run across the Lake and sold to the Confed- 
erate army at Ponchatoula for an enormous profit, and 
cotton bought with the proceeds and sold, on the return 
1 Vol. ii of Report of American Historical Association for 1902. 



CIVIL WAR AND DEFEAT 319 

to New Orleans at a further profit. Salt worth $1.25 a 
sack m New Orleans sold from $25 even to $100 in the 
Confederacy. Cotton purchased in the Confederacy for 
10 cents a pound sold in New Orleans as high as 60 cents. 
^' Colonel " Butler was supposed to have made two mil- 
lion dollars in his various lines of business, and others 
were not far behind him. The general aided his espe- 
cial favorites with boats and military escorts, though, as 
Denison writes, " this service was unpopular with officers 
and men, who enlisted for the benefit of the country 
and not of speculators." The effect of this wholesale 
corruption and the discredit it cast upon the Federal 
government .may be illustrated by an anecdote related 
by Denison. Dr. Avery, a surgeon of the Ninth Connecti- 
cut Volunteers, was captured near Ponchatoula by the 
Confederates and taken to Camp Moore. Salt, then a 
rare article in the Confederacy, was present in the camp 
in large quantities. The Confederate officer told Avery 
that it had been bought in New Orleans and was to be 
sent to the Confederate army at E-ichmond, and that he 
had paid a commission of five dollars a sack to the Fed- 
eral authorities to get it out of the city. ^' The Yankees," 
he added, '^ will do anything for money." 

General Butler's conduct in private life, and the per- 
sonal insults which he habitually inflicted upon all those 
of the opposite party who were so unfortunate as to 
come into contact with him, were further sources of dis- 
gust and humiliation to the people. A man *^ who lived 
in a bottle and was fed from a spoon,^^ as General Grant 
said of him, was scarcely the commander to win respect 
for the government which he was supposed to represent. 
Had he shown forbearance, honesty, or wisdom, and ruled 
with justice, though with all the necessary rigor of mar- 
tial law, and had he displayed any personal bravery, 
decency, or a sense of honor, — any of those personal 
characteristics which inspire respect even for an enemy, 
— the reconstruction of Louisiana might have been a 



320 LOUISIANA 

comparatively simple matter, wrought without bitterness, 
bloodshed, and ruin. To the exasperation, the despera- 
tion caused by his intolerable conduct and the imitation 
of many of his followers must be attributed most of the 
distrust and bitterness felt by the people of Louisiana 
against the Pederal military rule and the alien govern- 
ment which it established. 

General Butler did nothing to accomplish the further 
conquest of the State. Admiral Farragut had captured 
Baton Bouge, and the place was held by the Federals in 
spite of the gallant attempt of the Confederates under 
General Breckenridge to recapture it ; but the Confederate 
state government had been removed to Shreveport, and 
Governor Moore still controlled the greater portion of 
the State. Port Hudson was strongly fortified, and used 
to control the Mississippi as far as Vicksburg, and to 
keep open to the Confederacy the mouth of Bed Biver. 
General Bichard Taylor, an able son of Zachary Taylor, 
took command of the Confederate forces in the State, and 
raised a strong though small army at Opelousas with the 
assistance of Governor Moore and Ex-Governor Mouton. 
The discovery of salt mines upon Avery's Island, near 
New Iberia, provided an inexhaustible supply of this 
necessity. Expeditions sent out by Butler from New 
Orleans were defeated. In fact, they were, as Denison 
says, " commercial rather than military " in purpose. In 
August the Federals were beaten at Des Allemands. In 
October General Weitzel's advance along the Lafourche 
was checked by Armant's division of Taylor's force, 
and when Gen. Kirby Smith, commander of the whole 
Trans-Mississippi division of the Confederate forces, estab- 
lished his headquarters in Louisiana to direct that por- 
tion of the war, he found that General Taylor had been 
more than a match for General Butler, and that the 
Federals had made but little advance beyond the imme- 
diate neighborhood of New Orleans. 

Meantime, in New Orleans, Butler had taken the first 



CIVIL WAR AND DEFEAT 321 

steps to establish a* Union civil government. Elections 
for congressmen were held, and B. F. Flanders and 
Michael Hahn were elected and received by the House 
of Representatives. This election had been supervised 
by General Butler, even to the careful extent of order- 
ing distasteful candidates to withdraw from the contest. 
His own rule was about to terminate, however. The 
opposition to his corrupt methods had reached the North. 
Northern merchants established in New Orleans, military 
men, even a strong portion of the press at the North, 
condemned him. His unsavory notoriety had reached 
Europe, and had been denounced upon the floor of the 
House of Commons in England. Finally he was removed 
in disgrace, as he had been removed after failure in every 
position of trust which he had ever occupied, and Gen. 
N. P. Banks was appointed in his place. 

General Banks was a soldier, though not a brilliant or 
active one, and while his rule did little to hasten the 
Federal conquest of the State, still his conduct and his 
direction of political affairs tended, on the whole, to pro- 
mote harmony. He was unsatisfactory, however, to the 
E-adical wing of the Republican party. He showed little 
eagerness in the forming of negro regiments, and the 
enthusiastic Denison complains to Chase that under his 
influence the New England soldiers under his command 
refused to salute negro oflicers, and that he allowed 
"rebels'' to express their opinions freely on the streets, 
whereas Butler would have sent them to Ship Island. 
Furthermore, Banks refused to encourage the negroes to 
leave the plantations, and sought to induce those hanging 
about the army camps to return to the fields, and endeav- 
ored to regulate the labor troubles which the freedom of 
a portion of the slaves had already brought about after 
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863. 

At the beginning of this year, so small a portion of 
the State was under the control of the Federal forces 
that little could be done towards forming a " Union " 



322 LOUISIANA 

government. It was the wish of the President that Lou- 
isiana should form such a government at as early a date 
as possible and resume its place among the United States. 
In his opinion, the State had never left the Union, and 
was consequently still a part of it, although it had been 
temporarily under the control of a rebellious secession 
party, and that no further reconstruction was needed than 
the reinstatement of a local government thoroughly loyal 
to the central government of the United States and 
opposed to that of the seceded States. There had been 
in the State, before and during the war, a consider- 
able party of Northern sympathizers, not to be confused 
with the Southern men of conservative tendency who 
had opposed secession but had nevertheless cast their 
fortunes ultimately with the Confederacy, under the con- 
viction that the South had been grievously wronged, and 
was not likely to get fair treatment from the controlling 
Republican party. Most of the class of men referred to 
had remained quiet during the war or had left the State. 
Those who had remained felt their opportunity for power 
when the Federal forces took New Orleans, and many 
who had been in exile returned, bringing with them from 
the Union States others who saw in Louisiana golden 
opportunities for political and commercial ambition. 
Added to these was a thoroughly contemptible class, such 
as is present in every community, — men without convic- 
tion or honesty, men who were zealous Confederates until 
the last of General Lo veil's men had left New Orleans at 
Farragut's approach, and had then shouted with greater 
enthusiasm for the Union, and made haste to curry favor 
with Butler. Together these three classes made up the 
present Union party in New Orleans, the nucleus of a 
Kepublican political force, — men who had been Bepub- 
licans before the war, men who had come from other 
States to take advantage of the opportunities that always 
follow the successes of an invading army, and lastly men 
whose loyalty was ever at the command of whatever 



CIVIL WAR AND DEFEAT 323 

party held the power and the strings of the public purse. 
Admitting certain exceptions,^of course, few of them had 
been of political or social importance before the war. 
The feelings of a majority of these men were bitter — 
justly so in a few cases. The aim of the majority was 
personal power and gain, regardless of method or conse- 
quence. This might be said with truth of any political 
party, for only a small minority in any community is 
guided by abstract principles of wisdom or of right and 
wrong ; but the fact that the new Union party in Louisi- 
ana, grown up like a fungus from the decay of the pop- 
ular government and the corruption of Butler's regime, 
found itself in possession of absolute power, protected by 
a huge army, and urged on by vindicative influences from 
the North, gave full scope and unrestrained opportunity 
to whatever was vicious in its composition. Like every 
other party, it was made by circumstances and colored by 
them. Unhappily the circumstances which created the 
party in question inevitably predestined it to corruption. 

Union Associations had sprung up about New Orleans 
while Farragut's guns still threatened the defenseless 
city. T. J. Durant and others set on foot early in Jan- 
uary, 1863, a movement to establish a civil government 
under a constitution loyal to the Federal government and 
prohibitive of slavery. This work was in the hands of a 
Free State General Committee, composed of delegates 
from the different Union Associations. With the ap- 
proval of the military governor and the administration 
at Washington, this committee devised a system of regis- 
tration which should fix the qualifications of voters, and 
recommended that an election be held for delegates to a 
state convention to be called in September, 1863. The 
successes of the Confederates, however, had prevented 
the Federals from extending their control far beyond 
New Orleans, and the project of establishing a ^' Union '' 
government was therefore postponed. 

Meanwhile General Banks sent a force of 20,000 men 



324 LOUISIANA 

against General Taylor's 3000 in the Teche valley.'^ 
Heavy fighting occurred at Bisland and Franklin in 
April, and Taylor was forced to retreat slowly north- 
ward. A brave but ineffectual stand was again made at 
Bayou Vermilion. Finally, in May, Admiral Porter with 
his gunboats captured Alexandria on Bed Kiver and 
General Taylor retreated to ISTatchitoches. He was pre- 
paring to attack Banks when he was ordered by Gen. 
Kirby Smith to send 4000 men from Louisiana under 
General Walker to aid Vicksburg, then besieged by Gen- 
eral Grant. Taylor had counted upon this force to assist 
his own small army in the attack upon Banks. General 
Banks, however, himself left Alexandria and went to the 
attack of Port Hudson on the Mississippi. This place, 
under General Gardner, and Vicksburg, under General 
Pemberton, still held out against the huge forces which 
Grant was massing against them, and effectually blocked 
the Mississippi against the Federals. Vicksburg was now 
completely invested, but the Confederates still main- 
tained their hold upon Port Hudson, though bombarded 
by Farragut's fleet. The capture of both these places 
was absolutely essential to the success of the Federal 
plans. General Banks, therefore, virtually abandoned his 
hard-won and still doubtful successes in the Trans-Mis- 
sissippi Department, crossed to the eastern side of the 
river, and threw his forces against Port Hudson on May 
27, 1863. His attack failed, and throughout the first 
two weeks of June the fort sustained the bombardment 
of the fleet and again repulsed an attack made by Banks 
on the 14th. On the 4th of July, however, Vicksburg 
fell after its heroic defense, and the full power of Grant's 
huge army might now be directed against Port Hudson. 
General Gardner surrendered the place on the 9th, leav- 
ing the whole Mississippi Valley in control of the Federal 
armies. These successes removed all chances of victory 
from the side of the Confederacy. The struggle hence- 
1 See Taj'lor's Destruction and Reconstruction. 



CIVIL WAR AND DEFEAT 325 

forward was prolonged only by the desperate instinct of 
a fearless people not to yield till utterly crushed. 

In Louisiana, General Taylor seized the opportunity 
offered by Banks's absence to recover much of the lost 
territory. On June 23 he defeated the Federal forces 
at Berwick Bay, captured 1700 men and enough guns, 
medicines, and supplies to furnish him during the re- 
mainder of his campaign. With wonderful courage and 
activity he penetrated to Donaldsonville and succeeded in 
closing the river against the Federal transports for three 
days. His scouts advanced to within ten miles of New 
Orleans and held the village of Kenner, but the news 
of the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson compelled 
him to abandon his bold plan of attack upon New Or- 
leans and to retreat southwest. By his campaign, how- 
ever, he had regained the Teche, Lafourche, Opelousas, 
and Attakapas districts. Nevertheless, his situation was 
most dangerous. He was cut off from the rest of the 
Confederacy, and any number of troops might now be 
hurled against him by the enemy. He therefore retreated 
in July before the advance of Generals Weitzel, Grover, 
and Dwight and retired up the Teche, removing the 
ammunition and the stores captured at Berwick Bay. 

While Taylor had been successful, there could be no 
thought of holding a general election such as the Union 
party desired ; but now the matter was again taken up. 
A judiciary had been established by Judge Peabody 
of New York, whom President Lincoln had appointed 
with almost unlimited powers. A Supreme Court with 
Peabody as Chief Justice, a criminal court, a probate 
court, and recorders' courts had all been set in operation 
during the spring of 1863. The Free State General 
Committee was eager for a constitutional convention to 
frame a document that might be radical enough for the 
government which they hoped to establish. Many of 
its members were for granting full suffrage to negroes, 
though slavery had not yet been legally abolished, for 



326 LOUISIANA 

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had been a mere 
war-measure and had freed only the slaves belonging to 
Confederates. For instance, the proclamation had no 
effect in the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, 
Jefferson, St. Charles, St. John, St. James, Ascension, 
Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. 
Martin, and Orleans, all of which were considered under 
the Federal control. The military governor, Shepley, 
approved of the plan, but General Banks was not in 
favor of unqualified negro suffrage and saw no necessity 
for changing the old constitution of 1852, which he 
thought should be reestablished with what few changes 
might be required. Banks saw that all the clamor for 
negro rights and negro suffrage came from the white 
politician, the mulatto freedman, or the Northern enthu- 
siast, and that the negro himself took no part or interest 
in these matters. His manful attempts to deal with the 
mass of helpless negroes that swarmed about New Or- 
leans and the Federal camps had convinced him that 
the negro slave was an indolent, thoughtless creature, 
without ambition or desire beyond the comfort or plea- 
sure of the present moment ; that he was for the time 
being incapable of taking care of himself, and would be 
the tool of his political master should the ballot be put 
in his hands. In fact, as the general said before a Bos- 
ton audience about a year later, ^^ the people of the 
North are much more disturbed and distressed at the 
condition of the negro than he is himself.'' It is possible 
that General Banks felt that the negro, if left to him- 
self, would present few problems and perhaps none of 
any serious nature. As the weight of General Banks's 
opinion carried the strongest influence with it, a consid- 
erable number of the Union party and of the Free State 
Committee defected from its original intent, and in the 
midst of the dissension President Lincoln's proclamation 
of his reconstruction policy on December 8, 1863, 
caused a short lull in the agitation. The President's 



CIVIL WAR AND DEFEAT 327 

plan was simple. In brief, he held that as the States 
could not legally secede, they had never left the Union, 
and that the mere establishment of local government 
loyal to the central government at Washington would 
entitle the State to its old place in the Union, after its 
temporary control by a rebel faction. Such a loyal gov- 
ernment might be established by the vote of one tenth 
the number of votes cast by citizens of that State in the 
presidential election of 1860, and to assure the loyalty 
of the citizens voting, each voter should be required to 
take before the military authorities the following oath : — 

"Z, , do solemnly swear, in the pr^eseiice 

of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully 
support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the 
United States and the union of the States thereunder ; 
and that I will in like manner abide by and faith- 
fully support all acts of Congress passed during the 
existing rebellion with reference to slaves, so long and 
so far as not repealed, modified, or held void by Con- 
gress or by decision of the Supreme Court ; and that 
I luill in like manner abide by and faithfully support 
all proclamations of the President during the existing 
rebellion having reference to slaves, so long and so far 
as not modified by the Supreme CourtJ^ The only ex- 
ceptions made to persons allowed to take this oath and 
vote among those previously entitled to the suffrage by 
previously existing state constitutions were the following : 
all civil and diplomatic officers of the Confederate gov- 
ernment, all men who had been in the Confederate mil- 
itary service above the rank of colonel in the army and 
lieutenant in the navy, all persons who had left seats in 
the Congress or judicial offices or positions in the army 
or navy of the United States to take Confederate service, 
and all persons who had treated colored persons found 
in the United States service or white officers command- 
ing such in any other manner than as prisoners of war 
when captured. 



328 LOUISIANA 

Thus the question of deciding the qualifications of 
voters was taken out of the hands of the local poli- 
ticians, and the registration of voters and control of 
elections given to the military officials. A nominating 
convention was called early in January, 1864, by the Free 
State Committee, to be held in Lyceum Hall in the City 
Hall. It was understood that Michael Hahn was op- 
posed to negro suffrage, and that he was to be the can- 
didate for governor whom General Banks would favor 
and who would support the views of the general. The 
radical faction of the party favored the nomination of 
B. F. Flanders. The convention held a stormy and 
wrangling session. Finally, when it was seen that no 
agreement could be reached, the radical faction with- 
drew in a tumult of yells and the shaking of fists, and 
reassembled to nominate Flanders. The other faction 
remained in the hall and nominated Hahn for governor 
and J. Madison "Wells for lieutenant-governor. By 
order of General Banks an election was held in that 
portion of the State within the Federal lines. With the 
exception of the required administration of the ^' iron- 
clad " oath and the fulfillment of the requisitions of 
Lincoln's proclamation of December 8, the election was 
governed by the provisions of the old state constitution 
of 1852. Hahn and Wells were elected by a consider- 
able majority and declared by the President to be 
invested " with the full powers hitherto exercised by 
the military governor." 

In the mean time, the portion of the State controlled 
by the Confederate government held an election and 
installed Gen. Henry W. Allen as governor of Louisi- 
ana at Shreveport on the 25th of January, 1864. Gen- 
eral Allen had fought bravely through the war and won 
a record as a soldier before he assumed the hazardous 
office now intrusted to him. His services to the cause 
from this time till the end of the war have made him 
one of the most loved and admired of all the governors of 



CIVIL WAR AND DEFEAT 329 

the State. Under the circumstances which hampered him, 
his chief duty was to alleviate as much as possible the 
terrible sufferings caused by the misery and devastation 
of the country. While General Taylor and his indefati- 
gable officers and soldiers fought against the armies of the 
enemy, it was the governor's harder task to fight against 
starvation and want for the sake of the suffering people. 
With immense energy he sought to encourage them to 
plant cotton, to manufacture drugs, to use, as far as pos- 
sible, the resources of the country. Unhappily the forces 
against him were too strong. General Sherman sent 
strong reinforcements to Banks, and early in April the 
Federal armies set out against Taylor, who met them 
at Mansfield, about forty miles from Shreveport. Here 
the Federals were defeated, after a bloody battle, with a 
loss of about two thousand men. Taylor suffered heavily, 
especially from such losses as those of the able officers 
Mouton, Armant, Beard, and Walker. A fight occurred 
on the following day between divisions of the two armies 
at Pleasant Hill, and Banks's army retreated toward 
Alexandria, where he and Porter's fleet in Red River 
were cut off from the Mississippi by Taylor for two 
weeks. The fleet was saved from destruction only by 
the skill of Colonel Bailey, and Banks was glad to draw 
his defeated forces off to New Orleans after the complete 
failure of his Red River campaign. 

General Banks was more successful in his handling of 
civil matters, and his general orders dealing with the 
regulation of the negroes within Federal lines deserve 
notice. The parishes under his control were divided 
into police districts, and '' invalid soldiers " were de- 
tailed for police duty. One school at least in each dis- 
trict was ordered to be established for the education of 
negro children. Plantation hands were not allowed to 
go from place to place except under such restrictions as 
the provost marshal of the parish should prescribe, in 
order to check the vagrancy of disorderly, idle negroes. 



330 LOUISIANA 

The provost marshal was to settle all disputes between 
negroes and their employers. Laborers were required to 
render to their employers, between daylight and dark, 
ten hours of honest work in summer and nine in winter. 
The marshal was to see that they received wholesome 
rations, medicines, medical attention, proper clothing 
and lodging, and that their children received proper 
instruction in the schools. Wages per month for first- 
class hands were to be eight dollars; for second-class 
hands, six dollars ; for third-class, five dollars ; and for 
fourth class, three dollars. Engineers and foremen 
were to get two dollars a month extra. Half a year's 
wages, at least, were ordered to be held back and paid 
only at the end of the contract year. Wages were to be 
docked in case of illness. Indolence, indifference, and 
disobedience were to be punished by docking wages. 
Crime was to be punished as in the army. Laborers 
might choose their employers, but when an agreement 
had been once made, the negroes became bound for the 
term of one year. In case of persistent indolence or 
refusal to obey orders, negroes were to be turned over to 
the provost marshal and forced to labor on the public 
works without pay. A bank was ordered to be estab- 
lished for the savings of the freedmen, and this grew 
into the most disgraceful of all the abuses wrought by 
the later Freedmen's Bureau. Cooks, washerwomen, 
coachmen, and all servants were required to make con- 
tracts with their employers. 

These regulations were displeasing to those who had 
other ideas of the negro and his qualifications as a citi- 
zen. The party in power, however, being directly under 
the control of President Lincoln, were not eager to be- 
stow upon the ex-slave the doubtful blessing of sufi'rage. 
Governor Hahn did indeed call an election for the choos- 
ing of delegates to a constitutional convention, but the 
election was under the control of General Banks, and it 
was a foregone conclusion that unqualified sufi'rage would 



CIVIL WAR AND DEFEAT 331 

not Idg one of the provisions of the new instrument. The 
student of the times is now treated to the interesting 
spectacle of the former advocates of a constitutional 
convention opposing- this one, on the ground that the 
delegates chosen did not represent half the State. Such 
was, indeed, the case. The convention was called, how- 
ever, and drafted a constitution in April, 1864, which 
was submitted to those voters registered within the 
narrow limits of the Federal lines under the "iron- 
clad " oath, and by them ratified and declared the funda- 
mental law of the State. President Lincoln had written 
to Governor Hahn intimating that the admission of a 
certain number of negroes to the suffrage on an educa- 
tional or property-holding qualification might act as a 
sop to the more eager abolitionists and still their clamor 
for more radical suffrage laws. The constitution, how- 
ever, limited the voting right to white males of twenty- 
one years or over (Article 14), though it declared slavery 
abolished in the State. Some concession to the future 
was made, nevertheless, in Article 15, which reads : 
"The legislature shall have power to pass laws extend- 
ing suffrage to such other persons, citizens of the United 
States, as by military service, by taxation to support the 
government, or by intellectual fitness, may be deemed 
entitled thereto.'' If President Lincoln's supposition 
had been correct, such a provision as the above ought to 
have assured even the most radical congressman that the 
provisional government established by the President did 
not intend to discriminate unjustly against the negro. 
This was not the case. In Louisiana itself the strong par- 
tisans of negro suffrage, chief among whom was Durant, a 
former slaveholder, carried on in miniature against the 
provisional government an opposition exactly similar to 
that which Congress offered to the President, and in 
each case the motive was the same — not the interest of 
the passive negro, but the perpetuation of the power of 
a faction which felt itself in a minority and knew that it 



332 LOUISIANA 

could retain its influence only by unscrupulous and arbi- 
trary methods. Tor Congress had now suddenly realized 
that the reconstruction of the Southern States should be 
a legislative problem. Benjamin Wade in the Senate 
and Henry Winter Davis in the House succeeded in 
having a bill passed on July 4, 1864, in direct contra- 
diction to the views of the President on certain points. 
This bill was passed at the close of the session and failed 
because not signed by the President, but it expressed 
forcibly the new temper of Congress and laid down the 
lines which its opposition to him would follow. It de- 
manded that a full majority of the '' loyal '^ voters of a 
seceded State would be required to adopt a constitution 
and establish local government instead of Lincoln's pro- 
vision that one tenth of the voters of 1860 would be 
sufficient for this purpose. It implied the theory that 
the seceded States had lost their position in the Union 
and were to be treated as unorganized territories. Men 
like Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens went farther and were 
bent upon treating these States as conquered lands with- 
out national rights. All males of legal age should be en- 
rolled and should take the oath of allegiance. Any one 
who had served the Confederacy in any way should be 
excluded from suffrage. Clauses must be inserted in all 
the new state constitutions abolishing slavery outright 
and permanently and repudiating the Confederate debt. 
Furthermore, representatives elected to the national 
Congress would be admitted to their seats in that body 
only after all these conditions should have been fulfilled. 
Lincoln evidently took this bill as an act of defiance, 
for on the 8th of July, 1864, he issued a proclamation 
in which he protested against any attempt to set aside 
the governments established in Arkansas and Louisiana, 
doubted that Congress could abolish slavery in the 
seceded States, expressed a wish that this might be done 
by a general constitutional amendment that might apply 
to the whole country, and declared his unwillingness to 



CIVIL WAR AND DEFEAT 333 

interfere with the ' ' loyal '' people of any State in organ- 
izing their government in any way they might choose. 
Thus the matter was practically left as an issue between 
the President and a dissenting Congress, to be decided 
by the people at the coming election. 

Meanwhile the system inaugurated by the President 
continued in operation. Members of the state legisla- 
ture and representatives to Congress were elected in 
September, 1864. General Banks was compelled to em- 
bark into further labor legislation to help the helpless 
free negroes. Many of the seized plantations had been 
operated by strangers, but these had not been as success- 
ful in managing the negroes as the old slaveholders had 
been. Complaints from the negroes became frequent, 
the crops of 1864 were poor, and altogether Banks's 
Board of Education for Freemen and the Bureau of 
Free Labor had little cheering news to report and little 
of the expected revenue to collect. All in all, the freed- 
man found himself in a pitiable plight, without masters 
who could understand his wants and protect him and at 
the same time without the power to shift for himself. 

On the 3d of October the new legislature assembled 
in New Orleans, with J. Madison Wells as President of 
the Senate and Simeon Belden as Speaker of the House. 
This body should have been radical enough to please 
even the newest and most enthusiastic ^^ Union '^ man. 
The spirit of this body, or at least a portion of it, may 
be illustrated by the motion introduced into the Senate 
ordering the attorney-general and the district attorneys 
to institute charges of perjury and treason against ex- 
Governor Moore and all the officers of the state govern- 
ment at the time of secession, against John Slidell, 
Judah P. Benjamin, the legislature of 1860, the judges 
of all courts, and against all state, city, and parish offi- 
cers who had not '' renounced their treasonable acts and 
returned to their loyalty." 



CHAPTER XIV 

CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION AND MILITARY 

RULE 

Lincoln was reelected in the contest of November, 
1864, but it was not clear whether the will of the people 
was with the reconstruction policy of Congress or with 
that of the President. One thing, however, was evident, 
the sentiment of the people of the North was not in favor 
of the radical Republicans ; for the candidates of that 
faction, Fremont and Cochrane, had been forced to aban- 
don the contest before the election and fuse with the 
Lincoln party. The Northern Democratic party, more- 
over, had nominated General McClellan, upon a plat- 
form which demanded cessation of war and a compromise 
with the Confederate government to bring about reunion, 
and had polled 1,835,985 votes to the 2,330,552 cast for 
Lincoln. 

When Congress assembled, however, it refused to 
admit the representatives elected from Louisiana under 
the President's method of reconstruction and refused to 
count the electoral vote cast in November in that State. 
On the 31st of January, 1865, the proposed Thirteenth 
Amendment was finally passed. This amendment was 
designed to make the abolition of slavery absolute and 
binding upon the whole country. It was signed by the 
President on the 1st of February, and immediately sent 
for ratification to all the States that could be reached. 
During the summer and fall of 1865, the Thirteenth 
Amendment was ratified by all the States except Mis- 
sissippi, provisional governments having been established. 



RECONSTRUCTION AND MILITARY RULE 335 

after the surrender, in all the Confederate States by the 
presidential plan during the interval when Congress was 
not in session. 

Though General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox 
on the 9th of April, 1865, many Confederates, especially 
those west of the Mississippi where the armies had suc- 
cessfully resisted the Federals, as in Louisiana, believed 
that the war might be prolonged, perhaps, by retiring 
into Texas and obtaining the aid of France through 
Napoleon III, who then had designs upon Mexico. 
This opinion was held only by a minority, for it was 
now self-evident that the Confederacy had been hope- 
lessly overwhelmed and exhausted, while the North yet 
had unweakened resources of men and money to draw 
upon. Nevertheless, Gen. Kirby Smith, commanding 
the Trans-Mississippi Department, felt that he could not 
surrender without an order from President Davis, since 
he had not been defeated by the enemy, but had, on the 
contrary, checked his advance and repelled his attacks. 
Governor Allen, however, saw the folly of persisting in 
the hopeless war, and General Smith was induced to 
write the Federal commissioners who demanded his sur- 
render to remain in Shreveport till a meeting of the 
Confederate governors of Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, 
and Missouri might be held at Marshall, Texas, to de- 
cide what action should be taken. This meeting was 
held, and General Smith was advised to surrender. 
Generals Price and Buckner were accordingly sent to 
New Orleans, and there formally surrendered on May 
26, 1865, in the name of all the Confederate forces of 
the Trans-Mississippi Department. 

The war was now completely at an end, and the 
people of the State were called upon to face the question 
of readjustment. In his farewell address on the 2d of 
June, Governor Allen gave expression to the feeling 
which now animated all Southern men who had fought 
bravely for the cause in which they had believed, but 



33B LOUISIANA 

who now accepted defeat as a final decision. As no 
other statement could better express the spirit with 
which the people of the State accepted the results of the 
war and which guided the subsequent action of South- 
ern men than this address, the concluding w^ords are 
quoted : — 

" Now let us show the world that, as we have fought 
like men, like men we can make peace. Let there be no 
acts of violence, no heart-burnings, no intemperate lan- 
guage, but with manly dignity submit to the inevitable 
course of events. Neither let there be any repinings 
after lost property ; let there be no crimination, no re- 
crimination, no murmurs. . . . You who, like myself, 
have lost all (and oh, how many there are ! ) must begin 
life anew. Let us not talk of despair, nor whine about 
our misfortunes, but with strong arms and stout hearts 
adapt ourselves to the circumstances which surround us. 

^^ It now rests with the United States authorities to 
make you once more a contented, a prosperous, and a 
happy people. They can within five years restore Lou- 
isiana to its original wealth and prosperity, and heal the 
terrible wounds that have been inflicted upon her, so 
great are our recuperative energies, so rich is our soil, so 
great are the resources of our State ! ... If my voice 
could be heard and heeded at Washington, I should say : 
' Spare this distracted land, oh, spare this afflicted people, 
they have suffered enough ! ' But, my countrymen, this 
cannot be. I am one of the proscribed — I must go into 
exile. . . . Refugees, return to your homes ! Kepair, 
improve, and plant. We want no Venice here, where 
the denizens of ah unhappy State shall ever meditate 
with moody brow, and plot the overthrow of the gov- 
ernment, and where all shall be dark and dreary, cold 
and suspicious. But rather let confidence be restored. If 
required, let each and every one go forward cheerfully 
and take the oath of allegiance to the country in which 
they expect in future to live, and there pursue their 



RECONSTRUCTION AND MILITARY RULE 337 

respective avocations with redoubled energy as good, true, 
and substantial citizens." 

Governor Allen was one of those whose position ex- 
cepted him from the general amnesty. It was his fate, 
and that of many another, to go into exile. He died in 
poverty the following year in the city of Mexico. Most 
of the Confederate soldiers, however, returned to their 
homes or to the desolation that had once been home. 
Uncertain as to what fate would be dealt out to them, 
they faced the future amid absolute ruin. The Confeder- 
ate currency had collapsed, the Confederate debt had been 
repudiated, the heavy debt and pension taxes of the 
United States had to be assumed. Canals, railways, pub- 
lic works had gone to decay. Many a man had lost all 
his wealth in losing his slaves. Many a one had lost his 
property through confiscation, or found his house in ruins, 
his fields grown with weeds, and labor so disorganized 
that he could get no help to plant a crop nor a horse nor 
a mule to drag his plow. Many idle negroes hung about 
the Federal camps or the offices of the new Freedmen's 
Bureau that had been organized in March, 1865, and had 
already begun to further demoralize the negro by mis- 
directed charity and venomous insinuation against his old 
masters. 

This Bureau, the chief source of disagreement between 
the negro and the white man and the chief cause of the 
negro's false elation and subsequent suffering, was a com- 
mission consisting of one chief and nine assistants. Its 
duties, as defined in the act which created it, were merely 
" the supervision and management of all abandoned lands 
and the control of all subjects relating to refugees and 
freedmen." Through them the Secretary of War issued 
rations, clothing, and fuel to the helpless, unemployed 
negroes, and all " abandoned " lands were put into their 
hands to lease or sell for nominal payments to the ex- 
slaves in tracts of forty acres each. The Bureau, with 
Gen. Oliver 0. Howard at the head, was probably ere- 



338 LOUISIANA 

ated with good intent, from an honest though misdirected 
desire to help the freedman rather than through intent 
to humiliate and ruin the Southern planter, though there 
were many people at the North who clamored to have the 
lands of the "rebels " all confiscated and given to the ne- 
groes. Unfortunately, unscrupulous men were appointed 
as agents of the Bureau, and the dazed brains of the freed- 
men were filled with dreams of confiscation and plunder 
out of which would grow a life of ease with perpetual 
free rations and "forty acres and a mule '' for each negro. 
Probably no one who has not lived among the negroes or 
seen enough of their life on the plantations to know how 
simple, credulous, improvident, and helpless they are, 
can fully appreciate the pathos, the real tragedy of their 
situation in those first days of unsought "freedom.'' For 
the time being the Bureau was without the large funds 
and terrible power later conferred upon it by a vindictive 
Congress, and the worst harm yet done was to turn the 
negro into a pauper and hold him in a position which 
allowed him no place whatsoever in the civilization upon 
which emancipation had thrown him to shift for him- 
self. 

The real negro cared nothing for political power and 
knew not even the name. Beyond the satisfaction of his 
daily wants and a desire to be free from responsibility, 
he had as yet no strong desires. The returning Confed- 
erate sought to hire him to do as a paid laborer the same 
work he had done as a slave. Many began to return to 
work on these terms, and the whole question would have 
easily settled itself. There really was never a "negro 
problem." The issue was raised by the white politician 
and the mulatto malcontents. The clamor which certain 
well-meaning philanthropists, educators, and believers that 
the eighteenth century doctrine of the perfectibility of 
man could be applied to the inferior African, did much 
harm in filling his head with notions which he could not 
understand, but which his ethnically low nature naturally 



RECONSTRUCTION AND MILITARY RULE 339 

vitiated into dreams of indolence and license. The only 
idea he could form of freedom and development from the 
exhortations he got from the Northern enthusiast on 
human rights and social equality was a life of license 
and indulgence without work and without responsibility. 
So persistently have the "rights " of the negro been main- 
tained before the public, that it is impossible even to-day 
to enforce the truth that the negro has never yet raised 
his voice for those rights and privileges or apparently 
desired them very clearly, and that all the clamor has 
been raised by white men who were animated by motives 
of very practical politics or of very theoretical philan- 
thropy, or else by the mulatto upon whose side there 
is- indeed much to be said and who represents the real, 
the only race problem. When the ordinary plantation 
negro found that freedom did not mean that the gov- 
ernment would support him without work and that he 
had been deceived by his imagination or by the lies of 
unscrupulous agents, he began to return to the planta- 
tions which he had deserted for the new delights of the 
Federal camp or the loitering crowd about the office of 
the Freedmen's Bureau. Many a one crept back to the 
old master when he felt the pinch of hunger and the 
coldness of that struggling world of white men from 
which slavery had debarred and yet shielded him. Many 
a one came back like a prodigal with sincere repentance 
to be supported and cared for. The agent of the Free 
Labor Bureau in Louisiana acknowledged in perplexity 
that newcomers could not manage the negro, and that 
for some reason he turned instinctively to his old master 
and worked for him as he would work for no one else. 
To the Southern man the reason is so simple that it need 
scarcely be explained — as simple as the fact that be- 
tween the Southern white man, unhampered, and the 
pure negro, uninfluenced, there is no negro problem. The 
North had seen in slavery only an unjust use of brute 
power. It had not realized the strange ties of common 



340 LOUISIANA 

interest between master and slave, nor the wrench which 
emancipation in many cases caused to both. As a slave, 
the negro had been docile and obedient ; as a freedman, 
he was still so. He was docile and obedient even later 
when he howled in political processions and plunged into 
riot to his own destruction ; but he was obedient then to 
the facile tongue of the white demagogue or to the bitter 
incitement of his unhappy half brother, the mulatto. 

With such a soil as that of the South and with the 
negro again at work upon the plantations, prosperity 
would have returned — did indeed begin to return ; but 
new factors were now to enter to complicate this question 
and create the problem which unhappily remains unset- 
tled to-day. Those were anxious days for the Southern 
white man. The war was ended, and military rigors had 
momentarily slackened in the brief temporary reaction 
that followed those just ended years of gigantic battle. 
The political schemer was momentarily checked by the 
return of those hardened veterans tried through four years 
of blood and privation and united to one another yet more 
firmly by the determination that came with defeat. Con- 
gress had not yet overridden the restraint of the Presi- 
dent and laid the South prostrate before the spoiler. 
Yet the source of a scarcely named danger had already 
been indicated. For instance, when the constitution of 
1864 had been adopted, and it was announced that one 
of its articles declared slavery forever abolished in the 
State, the negro churches and societies held a mass meet- 
ing in Congo Square in New Orleans, on the very spot 
where the voodoo dances had formerly taken place. The 
whole proceeding was more orderly than might have been 
expected, yet it was a strange and sinister spectacle to 
citizens of the old town. Three regiments of colored 
troops led the procession to the square. These were fol- 
lowed by negroes and mulattoes in carriages with white 
members of the Free State Committee, the Louisiana 
^^ Native" Guards and volunteers. Federal troops, 



I 



RECONSTRUCTION AND MILITARY RULE 341 

Colonel Hanks and the Friends of Freedom, and chil- 
dren of the Pioneer School with banners and such omi- 
nous legends, written by the white school-ma'am, as : 
" This is the Age of Progress ; we are for a New Civil- 
ization," " Nature is our Mother ; we are taking our 
Place.'' " Old Things must pass away," '' We are still 
marching on." In the square a great crowd of wonder- 
ing negroes assembled about the platform of the speak- 
ers. On the platform were General Banks, Governor 
Hahn, Mayor Hoyt, some white school-teachers, some of 
the mulattoes and the preachers of the negro churches. 
It was noticeable that the color of the leaders was light, 
but the dark, uncomprehending mass below the platform 
was susceptible, as only the negro can be, to emotional 
oratory. Watch that assembly with the eyes of a citizen 
of New Orleans of that day and you will gather, under 
the still cautious pretense of restraint, many hints of 
what the future might bring forth if those same white 
men and white-tinged colored men on the platform should 
feel it safe to speak outright what they now merely hint. 
Listen to one of the speakers. He is touching the most 
sensitive spot of all : ^' Although we are true lovers of 
our country and its flag, we can but show our objections 
to any intermarriages between the two races. As I could 
not permit any white man to marry my daughter, so I 
would ask the white man to take the same position as 
myself. . . . Let us wait for two hundred years yet, 
which will give ample time for the agitation of such a 
question as that to which I am still opposed. But there 
will be great changes in the policy of nations before that 
period, we know not what the future will bring forth ; 
yet I must oppose such intermarriages from the due re- 
spect I owe to the colored ladies." Another speaker, 
delivering himself in French, attempts under the guise 
of forgiveness to insinuate revenge : '' Let them tremble 
above all, those cruel masters ! Let them feel sorry for 
the unheard-of torments they inflicted on you ! But in 



342 LOUISIANA 

the name of God ! in the name of the 11th of May, 
1864 ! ! you ought to pardon — you should forget all 
and everything ! Let that solemn day awaken every sen- 
timent of pity, and be you all inspired with one desire, 
of a general absolution and forgiveness of those who 
called themselves your masters — your superiors as 
creatures ! Pity, a thousand times more pity ! Like so 
many old tigers they groan in their dens — their claws 
are pared forever ! . . . Do not fear, your chains are 
broken ! Portify the ardor of the Northern philanthro- 
pists. Some of them are dodging as yet. They are oc- 
casionally captivated by the lying writings of the slave 
party. Few of them have attained to that pure, rational 
radicalism which is the gift of Fremont, Greeley, Sum- 
ner, Phillips, Butler, Hanks, Conway, and those of the 
creed of Thomas J. Durant." ^ 

Such were the conditions which the ^^ old tigers " were 
called upon to face when they returned to Louisiana from 
the war. Their return caused a temporary amelioration 
in the public condition. Many negroes returned to work, 
many plantations were again put under cultivation, busi- 
ness was resumed, and the old voting population prepared 
to qualify again for the polls. Andrew Johnson, who had 
succeeded to the presidency after the murder of Presi- 
dent Lincoln, had assumed the same liberal policy of 
reconstruction which Lincoln had apparently intended to 
inaugurate. Johnson's proclamation of amnesty and par- 
don on May 29, 1865, admitted many ex-Confederates to 
the suffrage. Even those who had held high office in the 
Confederacy might, in certain cases, regain their citizen- 
ship by special application to the President. There was 
humiliation in all of this — more humiliation in the de- 
tails than can be even indicated in this condensed review ; 
but the people were ready to accept it as a part of defeat, 
and there was enough work to do in keeping the wolf from 

1 These quotations are taken from the corrected version of the 
speeches published bj^ the editor of the Republican Era. 



RECONSTRUCTION AND MILITARY RULE 343 

the door to occupy the present and still enough hope 
living in the general wreck to point to a better future. 
General Grant, who had been sent by the President on 
a tour of inspection through the South, reported : '^ My 
observations lead me to the conclusion that the Southern 
States are anxious to return to self-government within the 
Union as soon as possible ; that while reconstructing they 
want and require protection from the government ; that 
they are in earnest in wishing to do what they think is 
required by the government, not humiliating to them as 
citizens, and that if such course was (sic) pointed out, they 
would pursue it in good faith." 

This was certainly the case in Louisiana — the people 
at once set to work to establish a local government that 
should represent the whole State and should yet conform 
to the conditions necessary to the readmission of the State 
into the Union as indicated by the President and Con- 
gress. Governor Hahn, having been elected to the Senate 
of the United States, resigned his office and was suc- 
ceeded by the lieutenant-governor, J. Madison Wells, 
whose authority was recognized by President Johnson. 
At the election for state officers held in November, 1865, 
he was elected governor. The old citizens of the State 
succeeded in securing the office of lieutenant-governor by 
electing Albert Voorhies. As was natural in a commu- 
nity where the Democratic party was in a majority, a De- 
mocratic majority was elected to the legislature. This 
body met in special session on the 23d of November to 
discuss the validity of the constitution which had been 
fabricated in New Orleans in 1864, declared it to be of no 
legal value, and recommended that it be submitted to the 
people. As Hahn and Cutler, the senators elected by the 
last legislature, had been refused admission by the Senate 
of the United States, the present body elected Randall 
Hunt and Henry Boyce in their places. Louisiana was 
now in a condition to be admitted to representation in Con- 
gress and her old place in the Union, for the government 



344 LOUISIANA 

had been reconstructed so as to nullify former secession 
acts and to abolish slavery. All this had been accomplished 
under the policy inaugurated by President Lincoln and 
continued by President Johnson, and the conditions 
which the last Congress had stipulated had now been com- 
plied with during the interval when that body was not in 
session. Provisional governments substantially similar 
to that of Louisiana had also been established in all the 
seceded States, with certain exceptions to be made in the 
cases of Mississippi and Texas. 

Such was the condition of affairs when the 39th Congress 
assembled in December, 1865. In the Senate were men 
like Thaddeus Stevens and Sumner and in the House 
men like G. S. Boutwell, who represented extreme radi- 
calism and were eager in their desire that full suffrage be 
granted to the negro and that the Southern white men 
should be denied the same privilege until there was no 
longer any danger that they might resume control of their 
own governments. Men of this type were willing that 
discord and even disunion should continue, provided that 
the principles which they held should be maintained in 
operation, by armed force if necessary. At the opening of 
the session, however, the radical element seemed to be 
in a minority, and the President's message was received, 
apparently, with the approval of the majority. But on the 
19th of December, the President, in a special message, re- 
ported to Congress the favorable condition of political af- 
fairs in the Southern States and transmitted the generous 
report of General Grant which has already been quoted. 
This message and this report were the signal of release for 
all the forces of violence, vindictiveness, and fanaticism. 
It is true that the reconstruction of the seceded States was 
a legislative rather than an executive problem, and as such 
was a matter for Congress, not the President, to decide 
ultimately. On the other hand, the exigencies of war and 
consequent disorder had compelled Lincoln to outline 
and institute a provisional plan, and had similarly com- 



RECONSTRUCTION AND MILITARY RULE 345 

pelled Johnson to pursue it. The results obtained had, 
on the whole, been favorable, but were not so partial to 
the late '^ rebels " as justly to give offense to any of the 
victorious party save those who wished to push their 
triumph to the point of revenge and humiliation. Unfor- 
tunately the President did not command the influence of 
Lincoln and had given off'ense to Congress, so that many 
members were ready to oppose him even at the expense 
of a passive third party. The President's policy of re- 
construction was the most important measure before the 
people. It had been natural that the initiation of a work- 
ing plan should have fallen to the duty of the Executive, 
but the final decision really rested with Congress. By pre- 
senting this view the more radical members easily whipped 
Congress into a united opposition to the President and 
consequently to the policy of reconstruction he had held 
and which was actually in operation. Upon the presenta- 
tion of the special message and General Grant's report, 
Sumner denounced the whole as an attempt to ^' white- 
wash." the South. In a bitter speech he recited special 
instances in which outrages had been committed against 
the negro and quoted from letters which he had received 
from the South, withholding the names of his corre- 
spondents, on the grounds that their lives would be en- 
dangered if their identity should become known. The 
basis of his attack was the legislation by which some of 
the Southern States had attempted to solve the question 
of labor and to restrict the pauperism, vagabondage, idle- 
ness, and lawlessness among the negroes who had been 
misled by that fata moi^gana of the Freedmen's Bureau. 
An examination of such laws as had been passed in the 
light of the great danger which threatened from that mass 
of idle, ignorant negroes, excited by unprincipled schem- 
ers and blinded fanatics, will reveal their absolute neces- 
sity and, to most minds, will vindicate their justice. To 
Congress, however, they were merely an excuse, and the 
testimony was never fairly or fully examined. Only one 



346 LOUISIANA 

side was heard. In proof of this fact, it can only be stated 
here that, in the case of Louisiana, the state legislature 
had not yet held a regular session and had therefore not 
promulgated any legislation on this point, and that the 
only laws in force governing the question of free negro 
labor and negro vagabondage were those which had been 
inaugurated by General Banks himself. They have been 
briefly outlined in the present narrative. 

The debate following Sumner's speech was hot and 
bitter. The radical party — Sumner, Stevens, Henry 
Wilson, Boutwell — had been, before and after the war, 
willing to break up the Union or to prevent reunion 
rather than fail to establish what they believed upon an 
abstract question of human rights, first the emancipation 
of the negro and now his compulsory admission to full 
suffrage and social equality with the white race. Many 
of these men who considered the question as an ab- 
stractly ethical theory were sincere in their convictions, 
though, in their ignorance of the actual nature of the 
pure negro and his real needs, they ignored the practical 
results of the application of their theories. Allied to 
them, however, as in the case of the agitation before the 
war, were politicians who cared nothing for the negro or 
his supposed or real rights, but who saw an opportunity 
for the perpetuation of the power of their political party. 
In the debate this point was boldly touched by Stewart, 
the Republican senator from Nevada, who said : ^^ Are 
we willing to prolong the restoration of the Union and 
risk the experiment of taxation without representation 
for fear that application of the rule that the voice of the 
majority is law shall drive us from power ? " The answer 
of Congress to this question was a most vigorous affirma- 
tive and a most systematic suppression of the will of 
the majority in its dealing with the Southern States. A 
joint committee of fifteen members, from both Houses, 
only three of whom were Democrats, was appointed to 
consider and report on the question of reconstruction, 



RECONSTRUCTION AND MILITARY RULE 347 

and while they were in deliberation, Shellabarger, Fes- 
senden, Sumner, and Stevens promulgated on the floor 
the same form of doctrine for which the committee sub- 
sequently declared. Much was made of information fur- 
nished by agents of the Freedmen's Bureau, and the 
credit of belief which had been denied to General Grant's 
report in regard to the good faith of the Southern people 
was given to the directly contradictory report presented, 
in a more able way, however, by Carl Schurz. In Feb- 
ruary, 1866, a bill was passed giving extraordinary 
powers to the pernicious Freedmen's Bureau. It is need- 
less to discuss here the provisions of this bill, for it was 
vetoed by the President and failed to pass over his veto. 
In March the Civil Rights Bill was vetoed, but passed 
over the veto on the 6th and 9th of April. This bill 
was the forerunner of the Fourteenth Amendment. Ex- 
cepting Indians not taxed, the bill declared '' all persons 
born in the United States and not subject to any foreign 
power ... to be citizens of the United States " and 
granted ^' such citizens of every race and color, without 
regard to any previous condition of slavery or involun- 
tary servitude," to have the same civil rights as white 
persons. No specific mention was made of suffrage, 
however. 

Meanwhile the Louisiana legislature had assembled 
in January, 1866. There were many excellent men in 
this body whose names are known and honored, such as 
C. E. Fenner, B. F. Jonas, James Eustis, James 
McConnell, and P. S. Wiltz. The legislature ordered a 
municipal election to be held in New Orleans. Since 
Butler had deposed Mayor Monroe, the city had been 
governed by mayors appointed by the military com- 
mander, Hugh Kennedy, appointed by General Canby, 
was then mayor. In the election held in March, Mon- 
roe was chosen and allowed by General Canby to take 
his seat when he had secured his " pardon " from the 
Federal government. A motion to order an election for 



348 LOUISIANA 

delegates to a new constitutional convention was tabled 
in the legislature because of telegrams from President 
Johnson stating that any move to call a convention at 
that time would embarrass his plans for reconstruction. 
There were two parties in Louisiana in favor of adopting 
a new constitution, — first, those who considered the in- 
strument of 1864 illegal, and, second, those who did not 
consider it radical enough without a clause granting full 
suffrage to the negro. This latter party was naturally in 
a minority, and was composed almost wholly of aliens 
who had followed the Federal occupation of the State 
and who were eager to control it by means of the igno- 
rant negro masses and by a suppression of the white 
Democratic majority. The legislature, however, as has 
been said, had adjourned in March, 1866, without or- 
dering an election for delegates to a convention. These 
facts must be borne in mind in view of the important 
events about to take place. 

The Democrats in Congress and Southern represent- 
atives seeking to be seated in Congress had denied the 
constitutionality of the Civil E-ights Bill; therefore it 
became necessary for Congress to have constitutional 
authority for its measures while they yet possessed the 
power of a majority in the Houses. It was seen that the 
emancipation of slaves would increase the Southern repre- 
sentation by two fifths in Congress and in the electoral 
college. This was a power which could not be allowed 
to go into their hands. It was feared that a union of 
Southern with Northern Democrats might overthrow the 
present Republican majority. In the exaggerated appre- 
hension then felt or pretended, it was hinted that, if the 
Democrats should obtain control of the government, not 
only might the Civil Rights Bill and all the acts de- 
signed for the benefit of the freedman be repealed, but 
the Confederate debt and Confederate pensions might be 
fastened upon the country and the Union debt repu- 
diated. Therefore, while Eepublicans held a majority in 



RECONSTRUCTION AND MILITARY RULE 349 

Congress, it behooved them to cripple betimes the grow- 
ing power of the rival party by any means made avail- 
able by power and the advantage they possessed. The 
provisions for curtailing Southern representation and for 
increasing the Republican voting-power in the South by 
granting suffrage to the mass of negroes were proposed 
and slowly worked into the shape which they assumed 
in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. 

This amendment was intended to accomplish several 
purposes. It made all persons born or naturalized in the 
United States and not subject to any foreign power citi- 
zens of the United States as well as of the particular 
State in which they happened to reside. This provision 
made all negroes citizens and also did away with the 
former doctrine that the citizen owed a primary allegiance 
to his State and a secondary or delegated allegiance to the 
central government. The second section of the amend- 
ment provided that representation should be apportioned 
according to the total number of persons except Indians not 
taxed, but in case the right of any male citizen of a State 
to vote in any election should be in any way abridged, 
"except for participation in rebellion or other crime,'' 
it was provided that " the basis of representation therein 
shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of 
such male citizens shall be to the whole number of male 
citizens twenty-one years of age in such State." This 
section made it possible for a Republican state govern- 
ment to curtail the white voting power upon the charge of 
participation in rebellion and also offered an inducement 
to grant suffrage to the negro so as to make the voting 
population as large as possible and prevent a reduction in 
the number of the State's representatives in the general 
government. Section third of the proposed amendment 
was designed to exclude from all state and federal offices 
all persons who, having served previous to the war in any 
official capacity, whether under state or federal govern- 
ment, had subsequently engaged in insurrection or rebel- 



350 LOUISIANA 

lion against the United States or "given aid or comfort 
to the enemies thereof." The removal of this disability 
was made, by the same section, contingent upon a vote of 
two thirds of each House of Congress. The fourth section 
was designed to prevent the repudiation of the debt in- 
curred by the United States during the late war or the 
annulling of the numerous bounties and pensions. It also 
provided that no Confederate debts should be assumed 
or any payment be made in restitution for emancipated 
slaves. 

This proposed amendment was passed by Congress in 
June, 1866, with the necessary two thirds majority, and 
it was not even submitted to the President, as it was con- 
sidered that his disapproval would be of no avail against 
such a majoritjT". This gave the President no chance to 
support his veto by such reasoning that might perhaps 
have caused a sufficient change of opinion to change the 
vote if the measure had come up for reconsideration, as had 
been the case with the Freedmen's Bureau Bill of Janu- 
ary, 1866. Moreover, this action of Congress was in direct 
violation of the Constitution. Prom this time till the dis- 
solution of this particular Congress, the whole body was 
carried away by violent feeling, and none of its subse- 
quent acts or the methods adopted for enforcement can 
stand a legal or constitutional test. The President, as 
representing the established Constitution, was completely 
ignored. 

Along with the article of amendment, the Peconstruc- 
tion Committee had reported a bill which would have 
made the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment by 
the Southern States the condition upon which their repre- 
sentatives would be admitted to Congress. The absurd 
inconsistency of such an attitude is manifest upon the most 
superficial examination. The only consistent theory on 
this point was held by Stevens, who maintained that the 
seceded States should not be considered as in the Union, 
and that the ratification of the amendment by three 



RECONSTRUCTION AND MILITARY RULE 351 

fourths of the "loyal " States would be sufficient to make 
it part of the Constitution, and that the seceded States 
could be thereafter admitted under it as Territories are 
admitted. This view might be unjust, but it had at least 
the virtue of logical consistency and did away with the 
absurdity of requiring the Southern governments to act 
as States of the Union in ratifying the proposed Amend- 
ment and yet denying them the rights of States until 
they should have ratified it. For the present this bill pro- 
posed by the Reconstruction Committee was not passed 
as a law and was not sent to the States when Secretary 
Seward forwarded the Fourteeenth Amendment to each 
for ratification. Nevertheless, it was distinctly understood 
that Congress would not admit the representatives of any 
state government that had not ratified the Amendment; 
for in the case of Tennessee, a month later, Congress passed 
a resolution to the efiect that, whereas that State had 
complied with all imposed conditions and ratified the 
FouHeenth Amendment, therefore the State was declared 
restored to its practical relations with the Union, and 
"again entitled to be represented by senators and repre- 
sentatives in Congress." A subsequent bill of Congress 
formally enforced this extraordinary condition upon all 
the Southern States. 

Congress then passed and repassed over the President's 
veto, on July 16, 1866, a new Freedmen's Bureau Act. 
The powers of the single commissioner. General Howard, 
and the increased number of his assistants were extraor- 
dinarily enlarged. The Bureau was authorized to sell 
confiscated and abandoned lands to the freedmen for nom- 
inal prices, to sell Confederate public property for the 
support of negro schools, to make, execute, and interpret 
laws, to define and punish crime, to levy and collect taxes 
for the support and education of freedmen, to use military 
force in carrying out its dictates, and to interfere with 
the civil courts in cases which concerned freedmen. Thus, 
especially in instances where the military commanders 



352 LOUISIANA 

were at the same time assistant commissioners, a large 
part of the government of the South was put into the 
hands of the Bureau. This Bureau was under the su- 
pervision of Secretary of War Stanton, and he, being a 
personal enemy of the President, refused to keep him 
informed of what was being done, and completely disre- 
garded his authority until he caused the breach which 
led to his dismissal from office, the undignified squabbles 
thereupon, and the consequent impeachment and trial of 
the President by Congress. The imposition of the Freed- 
men's Bureau was the source of more irritation and disas- 
ter to the South, and of misfortune to the negro himself, 
than any reconstruction measure. Moreover, the endless 
scandals, frauds, and waste of public money which grew 
out of its operations sufficiently condemn it from a 
Northern point of view. Professor Burgess, a student who 
cannot be accused of undue partiality to the seceded 
States, has this to say of the Freedmen's Bureau : - " While 
its superior officers were generally men of ability and 
character, a large number of the subalterns were canting 
hypocrites and outright thieves. They kept the negroes 
in a state of idleness, beggary, and unrest, and made them 
a constant danger to the life and property of the whites ; 
and their veritable tyranny over the white population did 
more to destroy Union sentiment among the whites and 
make them regard the United States government in a 
hostile light than anything which had happened during 
the whole course of the rebellion. It was an institution 
which ought to have been dispensed with the instant the 
necessity which called it into existence passed away. . . . 
It took all the party discipline of the Republicans to 
prevent sufficient disaifection in their ranks to sustain the 
President's veto. On the merits of the question alone 
they could not have done it. They were in error, and 
many of them knew it, but they were now in to fight the 
President and they must stand together." 

1 Reconstruction and the Constitution, p. 89. 



RECONSTRUCTION AND MILITARY RULE 353 

The determination of the more radical Eepublicans 
to force negro suffrage upon the conquered States was 
productive from the outset of the most terrible efiects. 
In Louisiana the issue was brought to an early crisis. 
It will be remembered that the Radicals there were 
eager to frame a new constitution which would fulfill the 
conditions imposed by Congress and assure their own 
control of the power by means of the negro vote, which 
they knew they could control. The legislature had 
adjourned without ordering an election for delegates to 
a convention. The convention of 1864 had framed a 
constitution which had been adopted by the semblance 
of an election and had since been in practical operation. 
According to all precedent their work was done and they 
had no further existence. A portion of that body, how- 
ever, had been disappointed in not being able, owing to 
the influence of Banks and Hahn, to make the constitu- 
tion more radical. They had not been able to accom- 
plish their wishes, but before they adjourned they had 
passed the following extraordinary resolution : ^' That 
when this convention adjourns, it shall be at the call of 
the president, whose duty it shall be to reconvoke the 
convention for any cause, or, in case the constitution 
should not be ratified, for the purpose of taking such 
measures as may be necessary for the formation of a 
civil government in Louisiana. He shall also, in that 
case, call upon the proper officers of the State to cause 
elections to be held to fill the vacancies that may exist 
in the convention, in the parishes where the same may 
be practicable." This perpetuation of itself was now 
outdone by certain of its members. These persons re- 
quested the former president. Judge Durell, to recon- 
voke the convention. He refused, and these same per- 
sons thereupon held a meeting on June 26 in New 
Orleans, and elected Judge E,. K. Howell, of the Su- 
preme Court, chairman pro tempore. Howell had been 
a member of the convention of 1864, but had resigned 



354 LOUISIANA 

before its adjournment. He could, therefore, in no sense 
be considered a member, yet he nevertheless issued a 
call to the former convention to assemble on the 30th 
of July, 1866, and requested Governor Wells to call an 
immediate election to fill vacancies. Governor Wells 
was a man of little force and had never been strongly 
on the side of the people of the State. He sided with 
the conventionists in spite of the fact that their methods 
and language were revolutionary, and ordered an election 
to be held to fill the vacancies, yet he betrayed some 
hesitation by naming so distant a time as September 3d 
as the date of the election. This did not suit the Radi- 
cals. They held a meeting in the Mechanics' Institute on 
the evening of the 27th of July, with the disgruntled 
Michael Hahn as chairman. He made a violent speech, 
and equally violent sentiments were expressed in ad- 
dresses made from a platform outside the place of meet- 
ing to a crowd in the street, most of whom were excited 
negroes. Dr. A. P. Dostie declared to an audience of 
negroes that President Johnson was a traitor and that 
the streets of New Orleans would run with blood if the 
" convention " to be held on the 30th were interfered 
with. For the several intervening days the negroes of 
the city were excited to a dangerous pitch by incendiary 
speeches, the conventionists showed every intention of 
not waiting for any election to fill vacancies, but to adopt 
a constitution by the body that was to assemble on the 
30th, grant full suffrage to all negroes, disfranchise all 
whites but those of their own party, and capture the 
government of the State. 

Governor Wells made no attempt to check their 
illegal action. The people, therefore, looked for support 
to Lieutenant-Governor Voorhies and Mayor Monroe. 
The lieutenant-governor and Attorney-General Herron 
sent a telegram to President Johnson asking if the mili- 
tary would interfere in case the courts should order the 
arrest of the "convention," for Judge Abell, in a charge 



RECONSTRUCTION AND MILITARY RULE 355 

to the grand jury, had stated that the conventionists 
were engaged in an illegal procedure and were punish- 
able by law. President Johnson replied that the mili- 
tary would sustain the courts, and that Governor Wells 
had been so informed. General Sheridan, then in com- 
mand of the Department of the Gulf, was absent and 
General Baird was in command. He had been inter- 
viewed on the 25th by Lieutenant-Governor Voorhies 
and Mayor Monroe and had telegraphed to Secretary of 
War Stanton for instructions, but received no reply. 
The mayor announced that he would break up the " con- 
vention " as a disorderly assemblage if it should attempt 
to meet. General Baird maintained that the mayor had 
no authority to do this, as this was the duty of the 
governor. He said, furthermore, that unless the governor 
ordered the meeting to disperse, he, Baird, would order 
out the whole military force to protect it. General 
Baird was in a quandary. He knew that the President 
had ordered the military to support the legal authorities, 
but was at a loss to decide who these were. The courts 
had decided against the convention, but Judge Abell had 
been arrested by the United States commissioner for his 
charge to the grand jury, and Governor Wells appar- 
ently approved of the convention by his inaction. On the 
request of Voorhies and Monroe, however. General Baird 
finally consented to post some soldiers near the meet- 
ing-place to prevent any disorder. This was not done, 
through a mistake, as he afterwards claimed. 

On the 30th of July, 1866, twenty-five members 
assembled in the Mechanics' Institute at twelve o'clock, 
but immediately adjourned until one o'clock. Governor 
Wells was in his office in the same building, but left it 
and went to his plantation outside the city before the 
" convention " reassembled. Shortly before one o'clock 
a negro procession of perhaps a hundred appeared on 
Canal Street and marched towards the Mechanics' Insti- 
tute, where the '" convention " that was to give them 



356 LOUISIANA 

the control of the government and absolute power over 
their former masters was then assembling. They marched 
in some disorder, but were highly elated. They had a 
United States flag, and a fife and drum were playing. 
There is something pathetic in the blind unconscious- 
ness of this little procession, something symbolic of the 
course which the unhappy race followed at the call of 
lying leaders to its own misfortune. A crowd stood 
by, a crowd of white men, watching the procession. A 
scuffle began somehow. A negro drew a pistol and fired 
it — most of the negroes were armed — and then the 
watching crowd fell upon that unhappy procession. In 
a few moments the wretched negroes were flying for 
safety, flying to the hall where their leaders were sit- 
ting. There were many more negroes in Dryades Street 
before the Institute, and there were some inside the 
hall. Many of them were armed, but were too fright- 
ened to offer much resistance, as the increasing crowd 
of angry pursuers surged into the narrow streets after 
them. To their scared minds it must have seemed that 
the whole white race — the race before whom they had 
always bowed in submission — had risen to claim the 
long-delayed vengeance which they had been taught by 
the demagogues to believe no longer possible. Bricks 
and stones were flying, and some shots had been fired, 
some from inside the hall where the " convention " was 
quaking in its shoes and reckoning repentantly the long 
account against it, when Mayor Monroe's police, sent to 
break up the " convention " arrived upon the scene. 
The Federal troops had not left their barracks, for Gen- 
eral Baird, as he afterwards claimed, had believed that 
the meeting would not take place before six o'clock in 
the afternoon. So the people had a free hand and a long 
score to settle. The negroes offered some resistance, the 
police clubbed, and the crowd lent a willing hand. The 
police broke into the meeting hall in spite of the barri- 
cades of tables and chairs hastily piled against the doors 



RECONSTRUCTION AND MILITARY RULE 357 

and in spite of the white flag of surrender that fluttered 
pitifully too late from an upper window. The crowd 
followed the police into the hall. There was some 
shooting and much clubbing, and many arrests were 
made. Howell and Hahn escaped with their lives, but 
the notorious Dostie was shot, beaten, and tumbled mor- 
tally wounded into a cart. It is hard to say where the 
vengeance would have ended ; but now came some Fed- 
eral troops sent by General Baird, who had been appealed 
to by Mayor Monroe, and the trouble was quelled. As 
it was. General Baird had to report forty-four negroes 
and four white men killed, sixty-eight severely wounded, 
and ninety-eight less seriously hurt. 

The news of the riot, garbled and distorted, threw 
Congress into excitement. A committee consisting of 
T. D. Eliot, Samuel Shellabarger, and B. M. Boyer were 
appointed to investigate. The majority, after a most un- 
fair and irritating inquisition, made a report ^ which placed 
all the blame for the disorders in New Orleans upon the 
late "rebels " and the example set by President Johnson. 
Mr. Boyer, however, presented a minority report, hold- 
ing, as was indeed the case, that the trouble had been 
caused by the "incendiary speeches, revolutionary acts, 
and threatened violence of the conventionists." Governor 
Wells, who had now appeared in the press calling for a 
Federal army, was sharply taken to task by Mr. Boyer for 
his conduct in the whole matter. 

Congress willed to view the trouble as a verification of 
its pretended fears. At all events, it was plain that only 
force could make the Southern States subscribe to the 
fatal error of granting unqualified suffrage to the negro. 
Moreover, many of the Northern States were by no means 
hasty in ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment, and for 
a time its fate was uncertain. Congress, however, was de- 
termined that it should be forced upon the "rebels," no 
matter what means were adopted. The case is well illus- 

1 "New Orleans Riots," Report 16, House of Representatives. 



358 LOUISIANA 

trated by an interview which Louisiana's historian, 
Charles Gayarre, had with . Secretary Seward. Judge Ga- 
yarre called upon the secretary, gave him a statement of 
the condition of Louisiana, and assured him that, as the 
people felt that their only hope lay in the President and 
his supporters, a word of suggestion as to the policy 
most likely to assist the Administration would be of the 
greatest help to the state leaders. Seward replied that 
the Administration had demanded but four things of the 
South, — the abolition of slavery, the repudiation of the 
doctrine of secession, the adoption of the Federal debt, 
and the repudiation of the Confederate debt. He said 
that the Administration did not care what means were 
employed to comply with these demands so long as the 
result was accomplished. The measures proposed by Con- 
gress, however, had been designed to please the North and 
to keep the South apparently in the wrong. "You have 
been wrong once," said the secretary, " and they intend to 
keep you there as long as they can." In regard to the Test 
Oath proposed by Congress, Judge Gayarre complained 
that it would shut out the best men from office. Then 
said Secretary Seward : " I say to you what I have said 
to the Southern men whom I first saw after the war, and 
who asked me for my views — such as Hunter, Stephens, 
Orr, and others, — I said to them : ' You must make 
yourselves as small as you can 5 you must stoop and 
humble yourselves as low down as may be necessary ; 
you must roll in the dust ; you must eat dirt if need be. 
It is very hard, I confess, but it is a necessity ; and I will 
say to the North : Be magnanimous ; ' therefore I repeat 
to you that the best thing you can do is to get inside the 
Capitol as fast as you can, even if you have to creep for 
it on your belly. " ^ 

Congress now took the entire direction of affairs under 
its own management. As a preparatory measure, suffrage 

1 " Seward on Reconstruction," by Charles Gayarr^, in the Southern 
Bivouac, February, 1886. 



RECONSTRUCTION AND MILITARY RULE 359 

was granted to the negroes in the District of Columbia, 
over the President's veto. Early in February, 1867, the 
E/econstruction Bill drawn up by the E/econstruction 
Committee was presented to the House by Thaddeus Ste- 
vens and passed. Mr. Blaine proposed an amendment 
modifying the severe and thoroughly unconstitutional 
imposition of martial law in times of peace. His objec- 
tion was overridden, and the bill went to the Senate. 
The Senate suggested modifications, chiefly bearing upon 
the clause which deprived the President of his constitu- 
tional right to control the army and containing the sub- 
stance of Blaine's objections. This amendment, known 
as the Sherman substitute, was rejected by the House, 
but a compromise was finally effected. The President 
vetoed this bill, but Congress passed it over his veto in 
March, 1867. 

Unconstitutional and tyrannical in every line, it fully 
accomplished the purpose for which it was framed. The 
seceding States were divided into five military districts, 
— of which Louisiana and Texas formed the fifth, — each 
of which was to be under the command of an ofiicer not 
lower than a brigadier-general in rank ; he was given 
full power to govern his district, with the sole restric- 
tion that persons put under military arrest should be 
tried without unnecessary delay, that no cruel or un- 
usual punishment be inflicted, and that the death penalty 
should not be inflicted for offenses covered by the act 
without the approval of the President ; it required the 
granting of suffrage to negroes, the framing of state con- 
stitutions incorporating the required conditions by voters 
qualified by the Test Oath, that constitutions so adopted 
should be ratified by the qualified voters and approved 
by Congress ; the Fourteenth Amendment must also be 
ratified ; the provisional governments of the States under 
process of reconstruction might be abolished at any time 
by the Federal authorities ; and Congress was made the 
final judge to decide when any State should be in condi- 



360 LOUISIANA 

tion for readmission into the Union and for release from 
martial law. By these measures the people of the South 
were not only debarred from citizenship and placed under 
negro domination, but were denied the rights which the 
Constitution guarantees even to criminals, namely, the 
right to be presented by a grand jury and to be tried by 
petit jury in the regular civil courts, even though the 
crime charged against them should be treason. 

The President's veto, possibly written by Secretary 
Seward, is a most masterly document, and is as complete 
a refutation of the false position taken by Congress as 
could be desired. Disregarding the personal insults 
aimed at himself in this and in the Tenure of Office 
Bill, presented and vetoed at the same time, he urged 
upon Congress, in view of the importance of these acts 
in their bearing upon the future, that a hearing at least 
be granted to all the States, which was then not possible, 
for ten Southern States and six Northern States would 
be debarred from representation by the measure as not 
having ratified the Fourteenth Amendment.* His ob- 
jections were of course disregarded, and Congress pro- 
ceeded to pass a Supplementary Reconstruction Bill, 
also in March, 1867. This bill ordered the commanders 
of the military districts to cause a registration of voters, 
including all males twenty-one years of age, regardless 
of race, color, or previous condition, who had been resi- 
dents of the State for one year, and refusing suffrage to 
all who could not take oath that they had not been " dis- 
franchised for participating in the rebellion." The com- 
manders were to appoint registrations boards, each con- 
sisting of three loyal officers or persons. Elections for 
delegates to constitutional conventions were to be held 
under the direction of the military authorities and the 

1 Justice Miller of the United States Supreme Court has recently 
questioned the fact that the Fourteenth Amendment was ever ratified 
bv the States. 



RECONSTRUCTION AND MILITARY RULE 361 

constitutions duly ratified as provided in the preceding 
act. 

The President complied with the law as established 
by the passage of these bills over his veto and appointed 
the required military commanders. Gen. Phil. Sheridan 
fell to Louisiana and Texas. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE FIGHT AGAINST " CARPET BAG " RULE 

The Louisiana legislature had assembled the December 
preceding these acts of Congress, and, in spite of the 
recommendation of Governor Wells, had refused, by a 
unanimous vote, to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. 
When the Eeconstruction Acts had been published they 
protested against them and instructed the attorney-gen- 
eral to test their validity before the courts. Governor 
Wells vetoed these resolutions, and by proclamation de- 
clared the Reconstruction Acts to be in force in Louisi- 
ana. The governor's will would have counted as nothing 
had not General Sheridan, who, however, had not yet 
received his appointment as commander of the newly 
designated Fifth Military District, assumed authority 
to order an election to be held on March 11, 1867, to 
choose delegates for a constitutional convention. His 
appointment came a few days later, and he then slightly 
modified his plan. He removed from office Attorney- 
General Herron, Judge Abell, Mayor Monroe, all parish 
officials, and all the officials of the city of New Orleans, 
including the chief of police. He even removed Gov- 
ernor Wells from office in June, as he was thought to 
be too little under the sway of Congress, though he was 
opposed to the popular government. The radical T. J. 
Durant was first appointed to the office, but as Durant 
declined, B. F. Flanders was appointed in his place. 
Edward Heath was appointed mayor of New Orleans. 
The commanding general ordered a registration of voters, 
and, after strictly enforcing the stringent Test Oath, 



THE FIGHT AGAINST ''CARPET BAG'' RULE 363 

recorded 45,218 white voters and 84,436 negroes. When 
it is considered that, by Sheridan's order, only registered 
voters could serve on juries, and that martial law was 
absolute when necessity required, it can be seen how 
completely the State was in the hands of its enemies. 
The new registration regulations had not only excluded 
most ex-Confederates but even old Union men, many of 
whom refused to register, though fully able, rather than 
take part with the ''carpet-bag" politicians and the 
horde of negroes who now controlled the government. 

General Sheridan was removed by the President in 
September, and Gen. W. S. Hancock appointed in his 
place. Gen. Joseph A. Mower, who acted ad interim, 
continued Sheridan's overbearing policy and removed 
Lieutenant-Governor Voorhies. When General Hancock 
arrived in !N"ovember, he inaugurated a conservative 
policy and ruled with whatever justice was possible with 
such unprincipled subordinates as he had. He reinstated 
Voorhies and some others among Sheridan's removals, 
and revoked Sheridan's order requiring that members of 
juries should be registered voters. He announced that he 
intended to support the courts 'and the civil authorities 
and to minimize military interference, as the surest 
way of producing content and securing good govern- 
ment. Upon the resignation of Flanders, he appointed 
Joshua Baker, a Democrat who had opposed secession, 
to the office of governor. 

A constitutional convention did not meet and adopt a 
constitution until March, 1868, but when it did meet it 
was of a complexion to suit the taste of Congress, and 
its work must have been equally savory. 

Following the precedent of the constitution of 1864, 
the present instrument showed a tendency towards a lib- 
eral generosity in the way of salaries. The salary of the 
governor was fixed at $8000, twice the amount provided 
by the Democratic constitution of 1879. The salary of 
the lieutenant-governor was to be $3000 per annum, 



364 LOUISIANA 

whereas in 1879 it had been fixed at twice the amount of 
compensation due to a member of the General Assembly, 
that is, $8 a day during session and traveling expenses 
not to exceed $30 each way. The compensation of 
members of the Assembly was to be $8 a day, whereas in 
1879 it had been $4 a day. Article 2 made negroes citi- 
zens of the State and county and declared that allegiance 
to the United States was paramount to allegiance to any 
particular State. Article 3 abolished slavery and invol- 
untary servitude. Article 13 showed that the negro law- 
makers meant to push political equality on to social 
equality by providing that all public conveyances and 
all places of public resort for which licenses were re- 
quired should be open to all persons ^' without distinction 
or discrimination on account of race or color." Article 
135 further provided that *' all children between the 
ages of six and twenty-one shall be admitted to the pub- 
lic schools or other institutions of learning sustained or 
established by the State, in common, without distinction 
of race, color, or previous condition. There shall be no 
separate schools or institutions of learning, established 
exclusively for any race by the State of Louisiana." 
Article 142 made the above rule apply to the university 
to be established in New Orleans. Article 98 further 
confirmed full negro suffrage, and Article 99 neatly dis- 
franchised all persons " who held office, civil or military, 
for one year or more, under the organization styled ' the 
Confederate States of America ; ' those who registered 
themselves as enemies of the United States ; those 
who acted as leaders of guerrilla bands during the late 
rebellion ; those who, in the advocacy of treason, wrote 
or published newspaper articles or preached sermons 
during the late rebellion ; and those who voted for and 
signed an ordinance of secession in any State." The 
only method by which a person so disfranchised might 
qualify as a voter was by " writing and signing a certifi- 
cate setting forth that he acknowledges the late rebellion 



TEE FIGHT AGAINST "CARPET BAG'' RULE 365 

to have been Tnorally and politically wrong, and that 
he regrets any aid and comfort he may have given it ; 
and he shall jile the certificate in the office of the sec- 
retary of state, and it shall be published in the of- 
ficial journaV^ 

This constitution was ratified in April by a general 
election of those voters duly qualified by the above- 
mentioned provisions, which are substantially those laid 
down by Congress. General Hancock had now been super- 
seded by Gen. R. C. Buchanan. Early in the winter the 
street commissioner of New Orleans and some members 
of the council charged with malfeasance in office had 
been removed by General Hancock, but General Grant 
had ordered these incapable men reinstated. General 
Hancock, then, finding that he could not retain his com- 
mand and his honor at the same time, asked to be re- 
moved. 

In accordance with a provision of the constitution, 
General Buchanan ordered an election for state officers 
to be held on March 18, 1868. H. C. Warmoth was 
elected governor and Oscar J. Dunn, a negro, was 
elected lieutenant-governor. 

On the 27th of June the General Assembly met. An 
attempt was made to exclude Democratic members by 
Dunn, as president of the Senate, and by the negro 
chairman of the House, by requiring all members to take 
the Test Oath. General Buchanan ruled that President 
Johnson did not consider that the members should be 
required to take any oath other than the usual oath of 
office prescribed by the constitution. There were sixteen 
Democrats in the Senate to twenty Bepublicans, and in 
the House forty-five Democrats to fifty-six Republicans. 
The Republicans abandoned the Test Oath in deference 
to the President's opinion. It may be stated, however, 
that on the 1st of July many citizens of New Orleans, 
and among them many of the disfranchised, made an un- 
equivocal demand for the admission of the Democrats. 



366 LOUISIANA 

In July the Assembly ratified the Fourteenth Amend- 
ment and elected William P. Kellog and John S. Harris 
to the Senate of the United States. General Buchanan 
then declared that civil government had been reestab- 
lished in Louisiana upon the terms dictated by Congress 
and that military rule was at an end. He remained in 
New Orleans, however, in command of the Federal 
troops in the Department of Louisiana. The Assembly 
created the Metropolitan Police, a body of men put com- 
pletely under the governor's power and patronage by 
giving him the appointment of the five police commis- 
sioners. On this board he appointed three negroes, and 
negroes filled the ranks of his private army. 

Signs of restiveness were evident among the people 
as the presidential election of November, 1868, drew 
near. A convention of Democrats in New Orleans de- 
clared that the new political party had created two hun- 
dred new offices, had increased and sometimes doubled 
the salaries of officials, that they had increased the pub- 
lic debt, ruined the public credit, and destroyed the 
ability of the people to pay the great tax necessary to 
meet the increased expenses. On the 22d of September 
serious disorders took place in New Orleans, and in St. 
Landry Parish on the 28th. The negroes all over the 
State had organized secret societies known generically 
as the Union or Loyal League. The crimes committed by 
negroes since the war — theft, murder, house-burning, 
riot, and rape — were increasing to an alarming extent. 
The Freedmen's Bureau and the blindness of many offi- 
cials had prevented the whites from getting justice in 
the courts. In retaliation, the Invisible Brotherhood or 
Ku-Klux-Klan had been formed, and was at first sup- 
ported by the best and bravest men of the South. In 
many cases its summary justice alone had stood between 
the whites and annihilation or worse. This powerful 
organization spread over the whole South and maintained 
for a long time a rigid discipline under a recognized 



THE FIGHT AGAINST ''CARPET BAG'' RULE 367 

head. Other organizations similar to it were formed. 
In Louisiana, the Caucasian Club or League of the 
White Camelia was the forerunner of the White League. 
There were cases where mere lawlessness masked under 
the guise of these earnest bodies and some acts of cruelty 
were committed in their names. The negro vote, Avhich 
could be overcome in no legal way, was often frightened 
away from the polls. Finally, when the necessity of 
these organizations diminished and their aims became 
perverted, the best men Avithdrew from them and fought 
against them with all their influence. ISTevertheless, 
they were a necessity and accomplished a great good. 
Deprived of all legal methods of defense, denied all 
justice, and placed at the mercy of excited negroes and 
their unprincipled instigators, the white people of the 
South were forced, for their very self-preservation, to 
take the only means of defense left them and fight the 
devil with his own fire. 

The comparatively smaller danger of financial ruin, 
poverty, starvation, was real enough to drive any people 
to acts of desperation. When the state legislature met in 
January, 1869, Warmoth, in his message, declared the 
state bonded debt to be $6,777,300 covered by sufficient 
assets. The floating debt was placed at $1,929,500, for 
the discharge of which the legislature levied a tax of one 
per cent, upon all movable and immovable property in 
the State. The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, declaring that the right of 
citizens to vote should not be abridged on the grounds 
of race or color, was ratified by this Assembly. It was 
reckless in its expenditures, in spite of the fact that 
some of the wildest of its bills had been vetoed by War- 
moth. A mass meeting held in New Orleans on the 28th 
of January, 1870, to protest against its actions, declared 
that the state debt was already $28,000,000, an alarm- 
ing advance upon the figures named by Warmoth a year 
before, and that the city debt alone was $17,000,000. 



368 LOUISIANA 

»As a proper sequel to the session, the auditor, G. M. 
Wickliffe, was accused by Warmoth of extortion, was 
convicted, and removed from office. 

The year 1870 saw a slight improvement in the 
chances of the people for regaining a voice in the gov- 
ernment. In the November elections the constitution 
of the State was so amended as to remove the disfran- 
chisement from many white men by abrogating Article 
99 ; to limit the state debt up to 1890 to $25,000,000 ; 
and to disqualify officials from voting or continuing in 
office unless they could show receipts in full for the 
moneys they held. But none of these amendments had 
any practical effect, however, for the auditor in Novem- 
ber, 1870, had estimated the state debt as more than 
$40,000,000. During that year, the expenses had ex- 
ceeded the receipts by almost $500,000, and the State 
had assumed obligations to issue $15,000,000 in bonds. 
The legislature of 1871 went even farther. The ex- 
penses of the House in this session were $767,192.65 
and for the Senate $191,763.85. Thus the average 
expenses of each member were over $113 a day. To 
the credit of Governor Warmoth it must be stated that 
he protested against this bare-faced robbery. According 
to his statement the total expenses, even allowing the 
excessive traveling expense of twenty-one cents a mile, 
ought not to have exceeded $100,000. Most of the 
money, he claimed, went to '^ an enormous corp of use- 
less pages and clerks; for publishing the journals of 
each house in fifteen obscure newspapers, some of which 
have never existed, while some of those that did exist 
never did the work they were employed to do, although 
every one has received the compensation for it; and in 
paying committees authorized by the House to sit during 
vacation, and to travel throughout the State and into 
Texas." The enrollment of the House showed eighty 
clerks, most of whom received $8 a day for the entire 
session, though only 120 bills were passed during that 



THE FIGHT AGAINST ''CARPET BAG'' RULE 369 

time, and though all their duties might have been ful- 
filled by eight or ten clerks. Many of the members of 
the Assembly were absolutely ignorant negroes. Only a 
portion of the extravagance is here noted. It is impossi- 
ble to detail all the sums spent on public improvements 
that were never even begun, to discuss the fraudulent 
issues of bonds, the sale of franchises, and the pledging 
of the credit of the State to all sorts of enterprises 
engineered by officials or their friends. The corruption 
was so general and so notorious that no one connected 
either directly or indirectly, whether actually guilty or 
not, has escaped from the mess without taint in the eyes 
of the people. It is impossible to extricate the detailed 
truth from the confusion, intrigue, prejudice, hatred, 
misstatements, charges, and countercharges, of rascal 
against rascal ; but when the pot and the kettle so in- 
sistently and incessantly call one another black, the 
chances are that both are right. 

There were unmistakable signs of splitting in the Na- 
tional Republican party during 1871 ; men were begin- 
ning to see the truth at the Korth, and the party of 
Liberal Republicans was forming. In Louisiana a reflec- 
tion of this tendency caused the more decent faction 
represented by Warmoth to hold out a hand to the dis- 
possessed Democrats. The most radical Republicans, 
called the Custom House faction, were led by S. B. 
Packard (United States marshal) and George W. Carter, 
speaker of the House of Representatives. In August, 
1871, the Packard faction, bent upon early efforts to cap- 
ture the government, held a convention in the Custom 
House under the protection of the gatling guns of the 
Federal troops, and from that stronghold Carter retal- 
iated upon the governor for his charges of corruption 
and dishonesty, by calling Warmoth a taker of bribes 
and the greatest practical liar alive. The Warmoth party 
held a meeting and sent a report of the condition of 
affairs to President Grant, The Packard faction did 



370 LOUISIANA 

likewise. In November, Dunn, the negro lieutenant-gov- 
ernor, died, and Warmoth, in a special session of the 
Senate, succeeded in getting his negro ally Pinchback 
elected president of that body and ex-officio lieutenant- 
governor. At the session of the House in January, 
1872, some of Warmoth's supporters were excluded and 
the governor himself was arrested and brought before 
the United States Marshal, Packard, on the charge of in- 
terfering with the organization of the House. He was 
released on bond, called an extra session of the House, 
and by the influence which he controlled succeeded in 
turning Carter out of the speaker's chair and putting in 
0. H. Brewster. Carter and his party thereupon de- 
serted from the House and assembled in a meeting which 
they called the true legislature, over the Gem Saloon 
in Poyal Street. Their resistance to the governor was 
determined and lawless. They refused to recognize his 
authority ; one of his men was killed in the street ; and 
when they were dislodged from the Gem they reassem- 
bled in Packard's office in the Custom House. Finally , 
on the 27th of January, 1872, Carter appeared with a 
mob of some three thousand men before the Mechanics' 
Institute, then used as the State House and attempted to 
take forcible possession, but were prevented by General 
Emory, commander of the Federal troops. 

Congress now appointed a committee to investigate 
the conduct of the Federal officials and of the two fac- 
tions. The committee consisted of five members. Three 
of these reported that the trouble was a mere quarrel 
between two factions of the Republican party, and that 
the Democrats sided with one side or the other as in- 
terest prompted. The minority report of Spear and 
Archer stated that the disorders were caused by squab- 
bles between two sets of rascals, of whom the State would 
soon rid itself if a fair election could be held. They said 
that the governor had been given almost unlimited power 
and had used it for the profit of himself and his friends, 



I 



THE FIGHT AGAINST ''CARPET BAG'' RULE 371 

who were nearly all aliens to the State, as he him- 
self was ; that the governor appointed the registrars, 
who returned his friends and shut out his enemies ; that 
certain members of the legislature had never resided in 
the parishes which they represented ; that one of the 
governor's supporters had been elected '' in a private 
room in a New Orleans hotel, at midnight, to represent 
a parish a hundred miles away ; " that the state tax 
had been increased to 2 per cent, and the New Orleans 
city tax to 5 per cent., and that the debts and liabilities 
of the State in 1871 had risen during Warmoth's term 
to the tremendous sum of $41,000,000 ; that the will 
of the governor passed or checked any bill ; that he fre- 
quently appeared on the floor of both Houses to influence 
members ; that '^ the world has rarely known a legisla- 
tive body so rank with ignorance and corruption ; " and 
that, while there was no direct evidence that Warmoth 
had taken bribes, as charged, it was at least significant 
that, although he had been a very poor man when he 
entered and had received an annual salary of $8000 for 
the four years of his term, he was nevertheless estimated 
to be worth something between $500,000 and $1,000,000. 

The presidential campaign of 1872 began early. Hor- 
ace Greeley was nominated by the Liberal Republicans 
upon a platform which favored the removal of political 
disabilities from the white men of the South. The Rad- 
ical Republicans renominated Grant and reiterated the 
original congressional doctrines in regard to the Southern 
States. A considerable portion of the Democratic party, 
both North 'and South, decided to support Greeley as 
their only chance of regaining their rights and reestab- 
lishing honest government in the crushed remnants of 
the Confederacy. 

The Grant party was distinctly in a majority at the 
North and controlled all the political machinery at the 
South. In Louisiana, the Packard faction favored, and 
was favored by, the Grant party. Warmoth felt that 



372 LOUISIANA 

he was in a dangerous position, for the opposite faction 
had made dire threats of the vengeance that would he 
taken • upon him when they controlled the State. He 
therefore organized a Liberal Kepuhlican party and pro- 
mised the Democrats a fair election for their support. His 
ally Pinchhack, however, deserted him for the Packard 
faction. 

A fused convention of the Democrats, the Keform 
party, and the Liberal Republican party met in June, 
1872, and nominated John McEnery and Davidson Penn, 
both Democrats, for governor and lieutenant-governor 
respectively. The Pinchback and Packard supporters 
fused and nominated W. P. Kellogg for governor; a negro, 
C. C. Antoine, for lieutenant-governor; a negro secretary 
of state, and a negro named Brown as superintendent of 
public education. Pinchback was nominated as congress- 
man at large. On the 4th of November, 1872, the election 
was held. The McEnery ticket received a majority of 
votes, but complications in the more important question 
of counting the votes now set in. By the existing law, it 
was required that the election returns be sent to the gov- 
ernor and opened in the presence of the Returning Board, 
consisting at that time of the governor, the lieutenant- 
governor, the secretary of state, John Lynch, and T. C. 
Anderson. Lieutenant-Governor Pinchback and Ander- 
son were candidates for office and were therefore disquali- 
fied from serving on the Board. The secretary of state, 
F. J. Herron, whom Warmoth had appointed to the 
office the year before in place of Bovee, M^hom he had 
removed on the charge of malfeasance, had not been 
sustained in his office by the courts when his appoint- 
ment had been tested, and Warmoth now removed him 
and appointed John Wharton in his stead. In place of 
Pinchback and Anderson he appointed F. W. Hatch and 
Durant Daponte. The Board, then, which met on the 
13th of November, consisted of Warmoth, Hatch, Da- 
ponte, Wharton, and Lynch, all supporters of Warmoth 



THE FIGHT AGAINST "CARPET BAG'' RULE 373 

except the last named. Lynch, finding himself thus alone, 
collaborated with the removed Herron, and together these 
two '' appointed " a new board by adding General Long- 
street and Jacob Hawkins, and finally ex-Secretary Bovee, 
in whose favor Herron resigned. The subsequent pro- 
ceedings are so extraordinary as to be almost incredible. 

Kellogg had brought suit before Judge Durell of the 
United States Circuit Court against Warmoth, McEnery, 
and the official journal of the State. Judge Durell issued 
an ex parte order restraining the defendants from count- 
ing election returns except in the presence of the Lynch 
Board, the governor's appointees were enjoined from serv- 
ing on the Board, McEnery was enjoined from claiming 
office upon an}'- returns made by Warmoth's Board, and 
"the State Journal was enjoined from publishing any state- 
'ments of election made by defendants.^ 

So far, so good ; but Warmoth was a wily opponent. 
At its last session the legislature had passed a bill vesting 
the Senate with the power to elect the members of the 
Returning Board. Warmoth had not signed the bill, for 
at that time it would have seriously curtailed his power. 
Now, however, he saw how he might take advantage of 
it. He signed the bill, and called an extra session of the 
Senate to meet in December and elect a board. In the 
mean time he took advantage of the law which empow- 
ered the governor to make temporary appointments when 
the Senate was not in session to choose an entirely new 
Returning Board. This body, known as the De Feriet 
Board, declared the McEnery ticket elected. 

The Kellogg faction now saw that their only chance 
of successfully contesting the election lay in the support of 
the Federal authorities.^ It was therefore represented to 
General Grant that by his support the state government 

1 See Randall Hunt's " Appeal in Behalf of Louisiana to the Senate 
of the United States." 

2 See Report of the subsequent investigating committee of the 
United States Senate for details of what follows. 



374 LOUISIANA 

might be made solidly Eepublican and so give the whole 
vote to him. The response to this request was prompt 
and efficient. 

Judge Durell, immediately upon the announcement of 
McEnery's election, issued an order which the Investigat- 
ing Committee of the United States Senate subsequently 
declared to be " without parallel in judicial proceedings." 
He ordered the United States Marshal, Packard, to seize 
the State House and prevent the McEnery party from 
taking possession. This order was not only preposterous 
and illegal in itself, but had been issued at night, out of 
court, and was not sealed or signed by the clerk. Under 
ordinary circumstances it would have had no more effect 
than an order issued by any private person. But Packard 
knew that he would be backed by the President and the 
Federal troops, for he had been so assured by a telegram 
from the Attorney-General of the United States. He 
therefore called for a detachment of United States sol- 
diers and seized the State House at two o'clock on the 
morning of December 6th. Under another order from 
Judge Durell, the Lynch Returning Board installed the 
Kellogg faction in office and excluded from the legisla- 
ture the members who had been declared elected by the 
Warmoth board. 

This assembly met at the Mechanics' Institute on the 
9th of December, 1872. Pinchback assumed leadership. 
His term of office as state senator had expired more than 
a month before, but he was nevertheless elected tempo- 
rary president of that body, and even authorized to act 
as governor by President Grant, who had been kept 
informed or, rather, misinformed of all that was taking 
place. President Grant's ostensible reason for supporting 
the Radicals was that they had been "sustained by the 
courts." A more practical reason was that they repre- 
sented the party that would help to continue him in office 
and power. ^ 

Meanwhile the McEnery legislature met in the City 



THE FIGHT AGAINST ''CARPET BAG'' RULE 375 

Hall on December 11, and was declared the legal body- 
by Warmoth. On the 12th, Governor McEnery tele- 
graphed President Grant asking that decision be sus- 
pended until both sides might be heard and assuring him 
that a committee of one hundred of the best citizens of 
New Orleans was ready to go to Washington and lay the 
case before him. The following reply was received from 
Attorney-General Williams : " Your visit with a hundred 
citizens will be unavailing, so far as the President is con- 
cerned. His decision is made and will not be changed ; 
the sooner it is acquiesced in, the sooner good order and 
peace will be restored." General Emory received prompt 
orders to use all necessary force in sustaining Acting- 
Governor Pinchback. At the same time a committee of 
forty-five citizens, sent to Washington in behalf of the 
people, were refused a fair hearing. Congress sent an 
investigating committee, which declared that the Mc- 
Enery party were the government de jure, but that the 
Kellogg and Pinchback party, backed by the United 
States army, were the government de facto, and recom- 
mended that Louisiana be placed under Federal control 
until a proper set of officials could be chosen. This 
recommendation was not accepted by the President, who 
remained firm in his support. Kellogg then assumed 
office, Pinchback having been appointed only to act after 
Warmoth 's impeachment until the troubles could be 
settled. 

Kellogg' s inauguration, however, was no settlement. 
Governor McEnery and his officers and legislature main- 
tained a form of official existence, and began the organ- 
ization of a militia. Riots now became frequent, for the 
Kellogg legislature transformed the Metropolitan Police 
into a well-armed military brigade, and put it directly 
under the governor's orders for such tyrannical employ- 
ment as exasperated the people beyond endurance. Citi- 
zens attacked the police stations in New Orleans on the 
3d of March, 1873, and were checked only by the inter- 



376 LOUISIANA 

ference of the Federal troops. Similar troubles arose 
at Colfax, at Coushatta on E-ed River, and in St. Martin's 
Parish. The McEnery legislature was arrested in March, 
1873, and locked up. 

The people were now driven to desperation. Either 
perpetual negro rule or annihilation seemed inevitable. 
At all events, existence had grown to be but a doubtful 
blessing in Louisiana. Men saw the futility of attempted 
fusions with factions of the Republican party ; they had 
long ceased to hope for mercy, or even justice, from the 
Federal government ; and they had been denied all the 
rights of citizens and even the rights granted to men on 
trial for crime. They knew that the power of their op- 
pressors lay in the protection of the Federal army and the 
support of the ignorant negro vote. It was plain, that if 
they could establish a legal and orderly government, 
the Federal troops would be withdrawn. There remained 
consequently but one hope and one duty — the deter- 
mination to rectify the blunder of negro suffrage and 
annul the pernicious influence of his vote. 

With this object in view the White League was or- 
ganized. The first organization is said to have been 
formed at Opelousas in April, 1874. The Crescent City 
White League was formed in New Orleans in June, 1874. 
F. N. Ogden was the first president, and W. J. Behan 
the first vice-president. The best men of the State were 
soon enrolled in its ranks. Their platform, declaring for 
free white government, was published,-^ and a meeting 
was held at Baton Rouge with B. H. Marr as chairman. 
This meeting announced that the people were determined 
to have a fair election at any cost, and Kellogg was 
denounced as a usurper. Kellogg retaliated by furnish- 
ing arms to the negroes throughout the State, seizing 
weapons and ammunition from stores and private houses 
in New Orleans to accomplish his purpose. The White | 
League was, in the mean while, organizing as Governor 

1 See N. 0. Picayune, of July 2, 1874. 



THE FIGHT AGAINST '' CARPET BAG'' RULE 377 

McEnery's militia, drilling in cotton-presses and halls 
about the city, and preparing for determined action. Under 
many difficulties and by all sorts of subterfuges, arms 
and ammunition were gradually obtained. Kellogg of- 
fered all the opposition in his power, and made some 
seizures of arms. It was his attempt to capture the large 
consignment of guns that came in for the White League 
on the steamer Mississippi that was the direct cause of 
the fight on the 14th of September, 1874. 

On the morning of the 13th, the Sunday papers con- 
tained an appeal written by Dr. J. Dickson Bruns, calling 
upon all true citizens to close their places of business and 
assemble about Clay statue on Canal Street at eleven 
o'clock on the morning of the 14th. To this call were 
signed the names of other known and trusted men. An 
orderly crowd of about 5000 white men assembled at 
the hour appointed. E,. H. Marr called the meeting to 
order, and Michel Musson was elected to preside. Judge 
Marr delivered an address, and presented a set of reso- 
lutions protesting against the frauds perpetrated by the 
Kellogg faction in seizing the government, declaring him 
a usurper, and demanding his immediate abdication. 
A committee of five was appointed to present this reso- 
lution to Kellogg, demand his immediate answer, and 
report to the meeting. The committee set out in search 
of Kellogg, but found him not. There had been no mis- 
taking the determined tone of the call that had appeared 
in the papers the day before. Not a negro was to be 
seen on the streets, for the rumor had gotten about that 
the white men had risen to exterminate them. Not a 
house-servant that day dared show an ashen face beyond 
the back gate. And their leader, Kellogg, had fled for 
safety to the United States Custom House, where a Fed- 
eral guard, Federal cannon, and the shadow of Federal 
authority made it, in the phrase of the people, a veri- 
table " House of Refuge " for such as he. The committee 
found a member of Kellogg's staff in his office, and 



378 LOUISIANA 

through him sent their message to the chief in the 
Custom House. From his haven of safety, Kellogg was 
courageous enough to reply that he had been informed of 
the meeting of several bands of armed men in different 
parts of the city, but that, as he considered such action 
as an attempt to intimidate him, he refused to receive 
any communication from them. 

The waiting crowd at Clay statue received this an- 
swer with cries of '' Hang Kellogg ! " and demands for 
leaders. Speeches were made by Marr, E. John Ellis, 
and Dr. Cornelius Beard, and the people were told to 
go to their homes, get their guns, and assemble in the 
regularly formed companies of the White League militia 
at half past two in the afternoon. Gov. John McEnery 
was absent during this crisis, but Lieut. -Gov. Davidson 
Penn, a fearless old soldier of the Army of Virginia, 
issued a proclamation calling out the militia to break up 
Kellogg' s assumed power by dispersing his Metropolitan 
Police. Gen. F. N. Ogden, another soldier of the Civil 
War, was appointed commander of the forces. 

An interval of silence and waiting fell upon the city. 
There were many uneasy consciences in New Orleans on 
that day of reckoning. About the Custom House some 
frightened negro officials gathered to be under the pro- 
tection of the one hundred and fifty men of the United 
States Sixteenth Infantry, who were by this time heartily 
sick of the irksome task of protecting Kellogg and his 
rascals from the vengeance of the oppressed people. Near 
the Kellogg State House, at the corner of St. Louis and 
Royal streets, were more negroes. The doors were bolted 
and barred ; some thirty or more Metropolitans walked 
about upon the gallery ; and the few people who were 
allowed admittance passed between a double file of police. 
The Third Precinct Station was full of heavily armed 
Metropolitans. In the Supreme Court room at the Cabildo 
on Jackson Square, some two hundred Metropolitans were 
under arms. General Badger was in command of the 



THE FIGHT AGAINST " CARPET BAG'' RULE 379 

police, but supernumeraries had been drafted into service 
and the renegade General Longstreet had been put over 
the whole of Kellogg's forces. 

Now, from all parts of the city the members of the 
White League began to assemble. In the most perfect 
order squads of men with rifles or shot-guns marched 
towards the meeting place to receive orders and go to 
their proper posts. The purpose of these men was too 
earnest, the crisis too serious, the issue too important, 
and the final outcome too grave and doubtful for small 
acts of violence or petty disorder. In reality, it was the 
lawful calling out of the militia to suppress if possible 
an illegal and disorderly crowd of political speculators 
who had captured the government and maintained a 
false authority through the misguided assistance of the 
Federal government. General Ogden established his 
headquarters on Camp Street, and the bulk of his militia 
were drawn up around the corner on Poydras Street in 
a line extending from Carondelet Street to the river. 
Along this line, all the streets running down to Canal 
Street parallel with the river had been blockaded with 
horse-cars, barrels, stones torn up from the pavements 
— anything that came to hand. All had been planned 
in advance, and by three o'clock in the afternoon the 
line was in readiness for action. 

In the mean while about five hundred Metropolitans, 
under General Longstreet and General Badger, with six 
pieces of artillery, formed on Canal Street between the 
Custom House and the levee. The White League's right 
wing extended also to the levee at the foot of Poydras 
Street and was in easy range. At a quarter past four 
General Badger opened fire on this right wing of the 
White League with a gatling gun and two twelve-pound- 
ers. General Behan was in command of the citizens here 
and returned the fire ; but the White League was poorly 
supplied with artillery and they were at a decided dis- 
advantage. So a charge was ordered. In a moment the 



380 LOUISIANA 

air was rent with the old "rebel yell," and the men of 
Shiloh, Gettysburg, and a hundred fields of battle charged 
upon the Metropolitans. Down the open levee, through 
Front, Peters, and Tchoupitoulas streets they swarmed, 
driving the police from their guns and chasing them out 
Canal Street past the Custom House, where the United 
States soldiers standing by to watch the combat threw 
up their caps and cheered on their old antagonists. In a 
little while it was all over. The arsenal, the State House, 
the Supreme Court, and all the camps of the Metropoli- 
tans below Canal Street surrendered before ten o'clock 
that night, and the whole city was garrisoned by the six 
thousand men who had answered the call of the acting 
governor. The police lost eleven men killed and sixty 
wounded. General Badger was desperately wounded and 
captured in the fight. The loss of the citizens was six- 
teen men killed and forty-five wounded. 

By one o'clock the following day, all the armed men 
had left the streets, the horse-cars w6re running, busi- 
ness was renewed, and even some negroes, reassured by 
a proclamation that the vengeance which had been meted 
out to their leaders would not be extended to them, re- 
appeared on the streets. Not a vestige of Kellogg's gov- 
ernment was visible, and a crowd of about three thou- 
sand men escorted Governor Penn to the State House. 

And now the people waited with anxiety for the word 
of fate that should come from Washington. On the night 
of the 14th, Acting Governor Penn had telegraphed to 
President Grant that the citizens had turned out the 
usurping government, asserted the loyalty of his party to 
the United States, and begged that the people be allowed 
to establish their chosen ofiicers peaceably and without 
the intervention of United States troops. The response 
of the President was to send troops and ships of war at 
once to the city, and to order General Emory to demand 
the immediate surrender of the people's government. 
Governor McEnery returned to the city on the 17th and 



THE FIGHT AGAINST ''CARPET BAG'' RULE 381 

surrendered his office upon the order of the military 
commander. General Emory appointed General Brooke 
to command the city, but President Grant did not ap- 
prove of this and ordered that the Kellogg government 
should be reinstated. Resistance against the United States 
was of course useless, and Kellogg, under this protection, 
emerged from retirement and resumed his office. Never- 
theless, the people were thoroughly aroused; they had 
proven that only the power of the United States army 
could maintain the " carpet-bag " politicians in office ; and 
they were determined, now that the odious Metropolitan 
Police had been wiped out of existence and a wholesome 
lesson of caution administered, to win back the State at 
the polls. 

The general election for state and national represent- 
atives was about to be held. A committee of citizens 
(the Committee of Seventy) laid the whole case before 
President Grant in a report, assuring him that the Con- 
servative party, though having a large numerical major- 
ity, was so shut out by the Radical Republicans, who 
controlled all the election machinery, that a fair count 
could not be had. The whole city was one military camp. 
President Grant paid no heed to this appeal. 

The election was held on the 2d of Kovember, 1(S74. 
In the city, many Democrats and Conservatives were 
prevented from voting. In the country, negroes were 
kept away from the polls by force, however, the polls 
were controlled, and the tables turned. In such cases and 
wherever a fair election was held, Democratic candidates 
were elected. The Conservative and Democratic party 
claimed four out of six congressmen, a large majority in 
the state legislature, and their candidate for state trea- 
surer. Elections in Louisiana, however, had for many 
3''ears been decided not at the polls, but in the office of 
the Returning Board. This was, of course, under the con- 
trol of the governor. The present board, of which J. 
Madison Wells was chairman, met under the protection 



382 LOUISIANA 

of Federal troops in the State House, on December 11, 
and announced that 54 Republicans and 62 Conserva- 
tives and Democrats had been elected to the state legis- 
lature and that a Radical Republican , Dubuclet, had been 
elected state treasurer. Simultaneously with this an- 
nouncement, Oscar Arroyo, a member of the Board, re- 
signed his membership on account of the frauds to which 
he refused to be a party. So manifestly corrupt were the 
returns of the Board that President Grant, fearing the 
people would not tolerate the wrong, ordered the re- 
doubtable General Sheridan to New Orleans. 

On the 4th of January, 1875, the legislature assem- 
bled. The full membership was one hundred and eleven ; 
but Kellogg had posted police officers at the doors of the 
assembly room to keep out all those whose names had not 
been returned by the Board, one hundred and six in all, 
with a Republican majority of two. The five members 
who had not been passed by the Board and whose cases 
were to be decided by the legislature were present in the 
room, but were prevented by the police from going within 
the bar behind which the legislature sat. It was evi- 
dent that Kellogg meant to control the session by main- 
taining a majority of his party by any means. The De- 
mocrats were equally determined to seat the contesting 
members and control the majority to which they felt 
themselves entitled. A committee of three from the na- 
tional Congress was present and made a report of the 
stirring scenes that took place. Two of these, Charles 
Foster and William Walter Phelps, sat within the bar 
through the whole meeting. The third, C. N. Potter, sat 
outside the bar and left almost immediately. 

The meeting came to order, a roll was called, and a 
quorum declared present. Mr. J. S. Billieu of La- 
fourche immediately took the floor, moved that Mr. 
L. A. Wiltz of Orleans be elected speaker pro tevipore. 
He put the motion quickly and declared Wiltz elected, 
almost before the Republican members had recovered 



TEE FIGHT AGAINST " CARPET BAG'' RULE 383 

from the shock of this unpleasant surprise. Wiltz sprang 
to the platform, pushed aside the clerk, Vigers, of the 
former House, and seized the gavel. He was sworn in 
by W. T. Houston, first justice of the peace in Orleans 
Parish, and Wiltz swore in all the members in block. 
Motions were now made with startling rapidity and with 
such grim determination that opposition was at first 
cowed to submission. P. J. Trezevant was made clerk 
and E. Flood sergeant-at-arms. Ten men had been ad- 
mitted to act ostensibly as " messengers " for the people's 
party, and these ten men were quickly sworn in as assist- 
ants to the sergeant-at-arms. On motion of Mr. Billieu, 
the five contesting members were admitted to their seats. 
The temporary officers were now made permanent, though 
the Padicals made an attempt to get Michael Hahn 
elected. Wiltz then took oath and fifty-nine members 
were sworn in, among them five Pepublicans. The 
Speaker now announced that the House was ready for 
business, a committee on elections was appointed, and 
the question of contested seats was about to be taken up 
when a new diversion occurred. 

The Radicals, chagrined at the defeat of their plans 
and disappointed at this unexpected activity of their 
opponents, now tried to obstruct the proceedings. The 
police had not yet interfered, but the news of what was 
going on had traveled to headquarters, and Kellogg sent 
reinforcements. The Congressional Committee in its 
report stated that the police and others at the door began 
an altercation with the sergeant-at-arms and his assistants. 
Some of the Pepublicans in the assembly attempted to 
go out, but Wiltz ordered the sergeant to permit no one 
to leave the room or enter it. Great disorder prevailed, 
pistols were drawn, threats were exchanged, and a fight 
seemed about to take place, when a Conservative mem- 
ber moved that the Speaker send for Colonel de Trobri- 
and to preserve order. This was done. The colonel came 
alone with one aide and went up to the Speaker's chair. 



384 LOUISIANA 

Wiltz requested liim to sp^ak to the persons in the lohby 
and restore order. The colonel was able to restore quiet, 
and then withdrew after being thanked by the Speaker. 
For about an hour the proceedings were continued, but, 
at three o'clock Colonel de Trobriand returned, this time 
in full uniform and accompanied by two officers. With 
him, also, was Vigers, the former clerk, who had been 
ousted by Speaker Wiltz. Colonel de Trobriand held 
written orders from Kellogg to turn out all members 
whose names had not been approved by the Beturning 
Board. These orders were shown to the Speaker, who 
refused to let Vigers read them aloud. Colonel de Tro- 
briand 's adjutant read the orders. The Speaker then 
declared that he would not let the five contesting mem- 
bers be dismissed except by force and under compulsion 
of the military, and refused to point them out. Clerk 
Trezevant also refused to point them out, nor was Vigers 
allowed to call the roll for that purpose. The members 
in question were pointed out, however, by T. C. Ander- 
son and H. J. Campbell, and these members, with four 
others and Clerk Trezevant, were ejected at the point of 
the bayonet by soldiers whom Colonel de Trobriand called 
in. Vigers now assumed the clerk's vacant place and 
proceeded to call the roll which had been edited and 
expurgated by Kellogg. Two Democratic members had 
answered to their names, when Speaker Wiltz called upon 
all the representatives to follow him from the room in 
protest against this invasion of a state legislature by 
United States troops. All the Conservative and Demo- 
cratic members left the room with him. The Badicals 
remained in possession, elected Hahn speaker, and chose 
their other officers for permanent organization. 

In reporting this affair, the Congressional Committee, 
already mentioned, declared that the controlling party 
was plainly in a minority; and that if Louisiana were 
freed from Federal interference, McEnery would be gov- 
ernor; that the citizens wanted nothing but peace, jus- 



THE FIGHT AGAINST "CARPET BAG" RULE 385 

tice, fair elections, and good government ; that the people 
of Louisiana "in their distress had gotten beyond any 
mere question, of political party " and were ready to sup- 
port " any form of government that would afford them 
just protection." 

General Sheridan, on the other hand, reported that 
there was in the State a spirit of " defiance to all lawful 
authority and an insecurity of life that is hardly realized 
by the general government or the country at large. '^ He 
declared that the President should order him to arrest 
and try by court-martial the " banditti " who had mur- 
dered men on the 14th of September and ever since com- 
mitted continued acts of lawlessness. 

This report of General Sheridan roused a general pro- 
test of indignation for its manifest injustice, and the 
clergymen of New Orleans of all creeds and denomina- 
tions, including the Roman Catholic archbishop, the 
Episcopalian and Methodist bishops, and the rabbi of 
the Jewish Temple, signed and sent to Secretary of War 
Belknap this statement : " We, the undersigned, believe 
it our duty to proclaim to the whole American people 
that these charges are unmerited, unfounded, and erro- 
neous, and can have no other effect than that of serving 
the interests of corrupt politicians, who are at this mo- 
ment making extreme efforts to perpetuate their power 
over the State of Louisiana." 

At the North, a realization of the misery of the South 
and the degradation to which it had been subjected was 
now spreading among all fair-minded men. The facts 
and the truth, which had so long been kept from the 
Northern people or garbled and offset with falsehood or 
exaggeration of special instances of wrong, were now 
becoming generally known, and the influence of the Radi- 
cal Republicans was fast weakening. The Senate of the 
United States called upon President Grant for an expla- 
nation of the extraordinary interference of the military 
with the Louisiana legislature. The message which the 



386 LOUISIANA 

President delivered them on the 13th of January was 
a weak document, rehearsing the troubles of Louisiana 
from the time of the contested election of 1872. He 
acknowledged that he was not certain whether Kellogg 
had been really elected, since the whole election, to use 
his expression, had been "a gigantic fraud," and since 
there had never been any " reliable returns of the result." 
All that he could say in justification of his support of 
Kellogg was this : " Kellogg obtained possession of the 
office, and, in my opinion, he has more right to it than 
his competitor." He did not explain how Kellogg had 
obtained the office, and the midnight order of Judge 
Durell and the action of Federal troops under his own 
orders were passed over. As a result of its inquiries, 
Congress sent down another committee, consisting of 
George E. Hoar, W. A. Wheeler, W. P. Frye, and S. S. 
Marshall. They effected what is known as the " Wheeler 
Adjustment or Compromise." A caucus of Conservatives 
ratified this agreement, as it seemed to offer the best terms 
obtainable at that time, and a special session of the legis- 
lature accepted it in March. In brief, the compromise 
was as follows : Kellogg was to remain in office and was 
not to be impeached for any acts committed prior to the 
agreement ; the Democratic members who had been ex- 
cluded from the legislature, now amounting to twelve, 
were seated, thus giving the Conservatives and Demo- 
crats a majority in the lower House; Wiltz and Hahn 
renounced their claims to the speaker's chair and E. D. 
Estilette was chosen; and the people's party was justified 
by the result of the investigation. 

On the 3d of January, 1876, the legislature met, 
and the House attempted to abolish the corrupt Return- 
ing Board, but were prevented by Kellogg and the 
Senate, who together controlled the Board and depended 
upon it for their political existence. Frauds in the 
executive and judicial departments of the government 
had continued to such a degree that the House appointed 



THE FIGHT AGAINST " CARPET BAG'' RULE 387 

a committee to investigate and examine the public 
accounts. As a result a committee was appointed to 
draft articles of impeachment against "Acting Governor '' 
Kellogg, and the Senate, as court of impeachment, was 
notified. The Senate, however, had no mind that the 
trial should take place, and notified the House that* it 
would allow until seven p. m. of the same day on which 
the resolution ivas presented for the presentation of 
charges. Nothing could be done in that brief time, and 
the Senate dismissed the accusation and declared Kellogg 
acquitted. The House adopted fourteen articles of im- 
peachment for acts committed by Kellogg since the 
Wheeler Compromise, but was forced to content itself 
with this action and with a protest against the action of 
the Senate. In his own behalf, Kellogg vouchsafed the 
statement that he had indeed approved certain " tempo- 
rary diversions of state funds," but only at times of 
great public need and without the loss of one cent to the 
State. 

But the days of the carpet-baggers were numbered in 
the land upon whose misery they had thriven. The Na- 
tional Republican Convention which nominated Hayes 
had adopted a platform which made sound money the 
chief issue, pledged the party to a reform of the.civil ser- 
vice, and advocated a conciliatory policy towards the 
Southern States. Hayes and his running mate Wheeler 
were both conservative men and were opposed to the 
maintenance of enforced governments in the South. The 
Democratic party, now of great strength, nominated Til- 
den and Hendricks. The election for national and state 
officers in Louisiana was to be held in November, 1876, 
and it was felt that a supreme efi'ort should be made to 
regain the government. The radicals had shown no evi- 
dence of any intention to change their methods. They 
had nominated the notorious Packard for governor and 
Csesar Antoine, a colored man, for lieutenant-governor. 
Against this ticket, the Democrats nominated a man 



388 LOUISIANA 

whose determination and courage could be relied upon 
to sustain his election, Gen. Francis T. Nicholls, a 
soldier already distinguished for conspicuous bravery in 
the Civil War. L. A. Wiltz, also a man of known cour- 
age, was nominated as lieutenant-governor. In utter des- 
peration, the party had pledged itself to sustain these 
candidates, if elected, at any cost and against any oppo- 
sition. As the time of election drew near. President 
Grant made no attempt to secure a fair and orderly elec- 
tion in the State, but merely invited certain prominent 
Republicans to be present and watch the workings of 
the Returning Board, among them Garfield, Sherman, 
and Wallace. The chairman of the Democratic National 
Committee likewise asked prominent Democrats to be 
present at the Louisiana election, and among these were 
Henry Watterson, John Palmer, and S. J. Eandall. 
There was small chance of a fair count, however, for the 
old Returning Board was still in power and its members 
were men whose devious methods were well known. It 
was composed of J. Madison Wells, T. C. Anderson, 
L. M. Kenner, and Gadane Casanave (colored). The 
place left vacant by the resignation of Arroyo, on 
account of the fradulent action of the Board at the last 
election, had not been filled, in spite of Democratic pro- 
test. President Grant, moreover, had ordered General 
Augur to see that the Board was not disturbed in its 
count. This Board and its returns were certified to by 
Kellogg. A Democratic Committee on Returns had also 
been appointed and its findings were certified to by John 
McEnery, governor dejure. 

As might have been expected, the Returning Board 
declared that all Republican candidates as presidential 
electors and the Republican state ticket had been elected. 
The Democratic Committee declared its own presidential 
electors and state ticket elected. The Democratic visit- 
ing committee declared that the result of the action of the 
Returning Board was ^^ arbitrary, illegal, and entitled to 



THE FIGHT AGAINST '' CARPET BAG'' RULE 389 

no respect whatever. ' ' The Republican visiting committee 
made a noncommittal report. Referring to the Return- 
ing Board, it says : ^ ' It is a tribunal from which there 
can be no appeal. . . . Members of that Board, acting 
under oath, were bound by the law, if convinced by the 
testimony that riot, tumults, acts of violence, or armed 
disturbance did materially interfere with the purity and 
freedom of election at any poll or voting place, or did 
materially change the result of the election thereat, to re- 
ject the votes thus cast, and exclude them from their final 
return. Of the effect of such testimony the Board was 
the sole and final judge, and if in reaching a conclusion 
it exercised good faith and was guided by an honest 
desire to do justice, its determinations should be res*pected 
even if, upon light proof, a different conclusion might have 
been reached by other tribunals or persons.'' The mean- 
ing of all this was that the visitors had not been in a 
position to judge whether the Board was legally justified 
in throwing out votes sent from any place where their 
own partisans made claims of intimidation or disorder, and 
that the correctness of its decision depended solely upon 
the honesty of the Board itself as the " sole and final 
judge.'' Any reader of the present narrative is able, with- 
out further detailed evidence, to judge whether the find- 
ings of such a board were more likely to be governed by 
abstract ethical principles or the exigencies of practical 
politics, and a moment's consideration of the composition 
of this Board and the method of its creation will not 
leave the conclusion long in doubt. As a matter of 
fact, not even the Returning Board could disguise the fact 
that the face of the returns showed a majority for Tilden 
and the Democratic state ticket. The only way of abro- 
gating this majority was to throw out unfavorable returns 
on the ground of intimidation, though in the very par- 
ishes where these claims were made the total vote was 
as large as ever before. That the election was clean and 
pure on either side cannot be pretended, but only the em- 



390 LOUISIANA 

ployment of gross fraud on the part of the minority in 
power produced certain inevitable exhibitions of force on 
the side of the undoubted majority. In many parts of the 
South on that election day no white man was sure that 
his vote for a Democrat would be accepted and counted 
unless he stood by with his shot-gun to witness the opera- 
tion. In view of the long record of scandal and oppres- 
sion and dishonesty that lay behind the party in power, 
even a revolution effected by sheer force would have been 
justified, and more than justified. The only force used 
was the mere exhibition of power to assure that the votes 
of an undoubted majority should be fairly deposited. 

[Fortunately other circumstances conspired to withdraw 
Federal support from the "carpet-bag" government, and 
the attempt of the Returning Board to annul the results 
of the election came to nothing. The Republican legis- 
lature did indeed assemble in the State House on Royal 
Street, which Kellogg had barricaded, and had declared 
Packard elected and inaugurated him in January, 1877. 
Rut they had no support from the Federal government, 
owing to the contest being waged over the decision of the 
presidential election ; and the Democrats had installed 
Governor Nicholls and all their state officers in St. Pat- 
rick's Hall on Lafayette Square. A force of the White 
League numbering about 6000 men had been put under 
the command of General Ogden and had taken possession 
of all the courts, police stations, the arsenal, and the Su- 
preme Court building. No attack, however, was made 
upon Packard in the State House, pending the decision 
upon the presidential election. But the one chance for 
which Louisiana had waited since the Civil War now 
came to it out of the complication in national politics. 
The Republican managers, relying upon returns that had 
already come in and upon the certainty that the Repub- 
lican machine in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida 
would give the vote of those States to their candidate, had 
declared Hayes elected by an electoral vote of one the 



THE FIGHT AGAINST " CARPET BAG'' RULE 391 

day after election. The electoral votes, however, had to 
be counted in Congress, and the Democrats were strong 
in the Senate and controlled the House. The election 
was claimed for Tilden by his friends on the face of an 
actual m^'ority. To lessen the difficulty, an Electoral 
Commission, composed of live members from the Senate, 
five from the House, and five from the Supreme Court, 
was chosen to open the returns in presence of Con- 
gress. The Republicans were able to obtain a majority 
on this Commission. Nevertheless, a single electoral vote 
from either one of the States from which double returns 
were sent in would elect Tilden. These States were 
Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida, in which similar 
conditions prevailed, and Oregon, which, for different 
reasons, sent in double returns. In the case of Louisiana, 
Kellogg certified to the electoral vote for Hayes, and Mc- 
Enery certified to the electoral vote which the State had 
undoubtedly cast for Tilden. Even if all the votes of these 
States were given to Hayes, he would be elected by but 
one vote. The Commission decided that the returns cer- 
tified to by the Republican governors should be consid- 
ered legal, and thus gave the election to Hayes. There 
were Democrats who felt that the will of the majority of 
votes should prevail at any cost and were eager to install 
Tilden by force if necessary ; for their candidate, even by 
Republican count, had received a popular majority of 
250,000. Tilden refused to consent to such a course of 
action, and the Southern Democrats showed an equal hesi- 
tation to contest the decision further. The fact was that 
agents of Hayes had made pledges to the Southern Demo- 
crats which assured them the control of their state gov- 
ernments in return for the electoral vote given to the Re- 
publican candidate. '^ Boss '' Shepherd had come to New 
Orleans incognito and had reached an understanding with 
the state leaders. Thus Hayes was inaugurated on the 
4th of March, 1877, upon the votes of Democratic States; 
but these States were " returned '^ to the Democrats, and 



392 LOUISIANA 

the " carpet-bag " government was deprived of Federal 
support in the last places in which it persisted, Louisiana, 
South Carolina, and Florida. 

Packard had made a last appeal to President Grant 
just before the inauguration of President Hayes, but 
Grant had replied through his secretary that he did 
not believe that public opinion would any longer *' sup- 
port the maintenance of state governments in Louisiana 
by the use of the military." The Federal authorities 
thus refused to recognize either claimant, and the Radi- 
cals, feeling themselves deprived of their only source 
of power, began to desert their leaders. Even Pinch- 
back acknowledged the election of Governor Nicholls. 

The Democratic state government had now completed 
its organization in all branches, and on March 28, 1877 
received the McVeagh commission sent by President 
Hayes to acknowledge a single permanent government. 
On the 6th of April resolutions from a mass-meeting 
and from a joint session of the legislature were laid 
before the committee by Governor Nicholls, who ex- 
plained the situation in detail. On the 20th, President 
Hayes ordered the withdrawal of Federal troops. The 
next day the last remnants of the Packard faction dis- 
appeared. On the 24th, the Democratic officials took 
possession of the State House. The White League re- 
mained under arms for four days longer, but no resist- 
ance was anywhere offered, and the citizen-soldiers were 
then dismissed to their homes. 



CHAPTER XVI 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 

With the close of the reconstruction period, Louisiana 
ceases to have an important history independent of the 
rest of the country. The nation itself is a fusion of 
often heterogeneous elements, and its government is a 
welding of commonwealths that were once independent 
of each other. It is therefore of the highest importance 
to an understanding of the life, needs, and ideals of the 
present nation to study its individual members in their 
process of growth towards the forming of the complete 
nationality. 

In the case of Louisiana one main theme is of para- 
mount importance, and enables the historian to preserve 
a sort of dramatic unity in his narrative, though the 
very broadness of the theme must necessarily draw him 
far beyond the limits of mere State history into the in- 
tricacies of international policies. Throughout the pre- 
sent incomplete commentary, an attempt has been made 
to hold the local history in its relation to the broad 
perspective of the international events which centred 
about it and made the region covered by the narrative 
of such vast importance in the history of the growth of 
the United States into a single coherent world-power. 
Viewed from this point, the history of Louisiana, in- 
cluding, as it must of necessity in its earlier portions, 
the whole Mississippi Valley and the coast of the Gulf of 
Mexico, is seen to be a central episode, a climax, as it 
were, in the larger history of the migration of the Anglo- 
Saxon race towards the lure of the West ; for in this 
progress Louisiana stood first as a foreign bulwark 



394 LOUISIANA 

against the march of the race and its national develop- 
ment, and then finally served, in its acquisition, as a 
precedent for the subsequent policy of the country and 
the very means whereby full territorial expansion was 
attained and secured and the binding rule of one common 
government stretched from ocean to ocean. Through the 
huge struggle between France and England, between 
the new United States and Spain, in the period of 
national formation, when sectional differences were strong 
enough to disrupt the yet loose and unwieldy Union, 
and throughout the progress of the Civil War, the Mis- 
sissippi Valley and the unique Latin settlement at its 
mouth held the balance which weighed the fate of the 
true nationality of the Federation of States. 

With the close of the Civil War, Louisiana should have 
assumed a place in the newly re-formed Union and ceased 
to have an individual history ; but the process of recon- 
struction arbitrarily isolated it for a time and prolonged 
the unhappy story. 

With the close of this period, however, our narrative 
reaches a point where the State assumes a normal posi- 
tion among the States of the Union. Its record, hence- 
forth, is of progress, improvement, the extension of pub- 
lic education, industries, and commerce, the ordinary life 
which is essentially cast along the same lines throughout 
the country. The energies of the people have been bent 
upon a new reconstruction — the reconstruction of its 
demoralized civilization to fit the changed conditions and 
to restore the prosperity which had been banished by war 
and the greater devastation that followed in the traces of 
war. 

The old order of things has passed away in Louisi- 
ana. There is much to be regretted in all of this, but 
the progress of the State is now in the direction in which 
the current of American tendencies has set, and Louisi- 
ana may hope to claim her full share of the material 
prosperity which seems to be at once the aim and destiny 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 395 

of the country. The time seems come when new condi- 
tions combine to restore, with an added importance not 
foreseen even by those dreamers who first won the land 
from the savage forces of nature, all those advantages of 
position at the gateway of the golden valley of the Mis- 
sissippi which the passing of the steamboat and the ri- 
valry and triumph of the railroad for a time deprived of 
fulfillment. That distant possibility which Decres hinted 
to Napoleon has become so great a necessity as to be 
practically a reality, and the opening of a canal across 
the Isthmus of Panama promises to make New Orleans 
the port of exit and entry between the United States and 
the open field of South America. Standing as the one 
large city at the centre of the line of traffic, also, between 
East and West, New Orleans, in the newer and vaster 
commerce of the world, should hold a position similar to 
that of Venice and Genoa in the Middle Ages. 

Thus, after recording the black years of failure and 
ruin, of struggle and disappointment, the chronicler of 
the State may close his narrative almost with the tradi- 
tional tag of all good fairy-tales. The labor and the pro- 
cess by which order has been wrought from .chaos and 
prosperity wrung from the ruin of war and ravening plun- 
der may be passed over in a word, for it is but the daily 
record of the daily duty done with courage and hope and 
determination. Its true history is in the lives and work 
of the white men and women striving at first for sheer 
existence and then, as the race will always strive, for the 
dominance of that civilization which has made its own 
power and right to rule wherever destiny has driven it. 
This story of the State may then well close with the 
record of the last act by which the people hope to pro- 
vide a solution of the chief political problem that still 
confronted them during this last self-reconstruction. 

It has been seen how the problems which the pre- 
sence of an inferior race at the heart of the white civil- 
ization seems to threaten had been held in abeyance by 



396 LOUISIANA 

the system of slavery. It has been seen also what attempt 
was made, after emancipation, to regulate the mass of 
helpless freedmen by legislation till time and training 
should fit them to assume the responsibility and danger 
of competition, unaided, with the superior whites. It has 
been seen, too, that the fatal mistake of giving the suf- 
frage to these unprepared freedmen was a blunder which 
accomplished none of its purposes and served only to cre- 
ate a hitherto unknown hostility between the races and 
fling upon the impoverished South the burden of a large 
class of criminals and paupers who were the abject tools 
of white and mulatto schemers. Since 1862, when But- 
ler first set foot in New Orleans, the State had endured 
loss by bloodshed, fire, pillage, robbery, confiscation, dis- 
franchisement of its best citizens, and political slavery. 
For over ten years, the people, ruined, oppressed, taxed 
to the point of actual starvation, and humiliated by an 
infinity of petty insults that find no place in history, had 
been bled by political speculators, had suffered from the 
experiments of fanatical and impractical philanthropists, 
and had borne the slow horror of seeing the pride of their 
race, the honor of their civilization, and the sanctity of 
their women endangered by the brute weight of the black 
incubus. With that weight thrown off by a turn of for- 
tune, it is not to be wondered at that the white men of 
the South united indissolubly to prevent the recurrence 
of those years of disaster. The one palpable necessity 
had been to eliminate the ignorant negro from politics 
and prevent his use by those who stooped to use him. 
This could be done at first only by force and by methods 
which were in themselves theoretically illegal, however 
necessary they might be because of the danger to all that 
the white race holds as the hard- won glory of its long 
history. The negro himself, passive and uncaring as he 
is by nature, could be held in this position by the same 
force which put him there. There was no instance where 
the pure negro, left to himself, was anything but docile 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 397 

and content to remain untroubled by aspirations or re- 
sponsibilities. He had been demoralized, however, by the 
political debauch into which he had been led, and his 
degeneracy had been alarming. The sort of education 
thrust upon him by well-meaning but impractical phi- 
lanthropy had been unsuited to his needs and had served 
only to give him false ideas of his actual political and 
social position. He had abandoned almost all the trades 
of which under slavery he held practically a monopoly 
in the South, and was becoming more and more unsatis- 
factory even as a field laborer.. The class of idle, vicious, 
and useless negroes has steadily increased since the war. 
Driven from the country districts, they flocked into the 
larger towns and formed there an ever-increasing class 
for the propagation of crime, beggary, and disease. This 
ignorant mass was fit prey for the mulatto preacher and 
mulatto agitator. The Charles riots in New Orleans were 
but one of the more .spectacular and illuminating results 
of such conditions. Statutory provision was felt to be 
necessary to provide for the twofold aspect of the prob- 
lem, namely, to give the negro every chance to become a 
useful citizen if he meant to do so by honest endeavor 
and by practical evidence of his fitness, and at the same 
time to prevent the still ignorant and vicious from be- 
coming material that could be used by political agitators. 
The State Constitutional Convention of 1898 at- 
tempted to deal with this question by limiting the 
suffrage, putting it upon an educational or property-hold- 
ing basis, at the same time providing for negro educa- 
tion, as the South has always done, by voluntary taxation 
of white property even in the face of its own dire 
poverty when that poverty stared with the face of hun- 
ger. The privilege of voting was made conditional upon 
the payment of the annual poll tax of one dollar for the 
two years preceding the election in question, upon the 
ability of the applicant to read and write, or upon 
the possession of property valued at not less than 



398 LOUISIANA 

three hundred dollars on the assessment rolls. There is 
no discrimination here against the negro on grounds 
of race or color. Those who are entitled to the suf- 
frage under these conditions can and do vote. The 
*' grandfather clause ^^ added to the above provisions 
grants exemption from the educational or property 
qualification in the cases of male persons who were en- 
titled to vote in any State on or prior to the first of 
January, 1867, or any male person of proper age whose 
father or grandfather was entitled to vote in any part of 
the United States at that time. Persons claiming this 
exemption, however, were required to make application 
before September 1, 1898, or be forever denied the right 
to do so. 

This much-mooted exemption is in the nature of a 
compromise, and is regretted by many who were prepared 
to go as far in the restriction of the sufi'rage as so ad- 
vanced a State as Massachusetts. While this clause 
admits whites who would not be otherwise entitled to the 
suffrage, it also admits a number of negroes. It was 
designed to cover certain special conditions, and will 
scarcely be perpetuated. If, therefore, the negro is 
capable of making an honest endeavor to qualify himself, 
and if he indeed possess the aspirations with which his 
idealistic champions have credited him, these restrictions 
upon the suffrage should affect him as they affect dis- 
franchised whites — as an incentive to self-development 
and a test of practical fitness for the privilege. 

It is the belief of the people of the State, and of the 
whole South, that the negro question has been made by 
the white and mulatto politician and by the ill-consid- 
ered interference of persons who do not know the true 
conditions, and that by preventing the influence of these 
factors the docile and passive negro will be no problem 
whatsoever. The menace of outside influence, however, 
tending to prevent the negro from working out his 
economic place by his own development, will continue 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 399 

the feeling of hostility between the races which it ori- 
ginally created by the blunders of Keconstruction. The 
war taught both North and South a mutual respect, and 
such wounds as it left would have been quickly healed 
had the war ended with Lee's surrender. Unhappily 
the war in the open field ended only to give place to a more 
bitter war waged by a faction of the Republican party — 
while the eyes of just men at the North were yet 
blinded to the truth and even to the realities of the sufifer- 
ings of their own race — against a helpless and broken 
people who had laid down their arms in honor and good 
faith after defeat in a cause which they held sacred. 
This later war, which seemed to be a war of extermina- 
tion, left wounds which generations may heal with dif- 
ficulty. The methods of that war destroyed good faith 
and confidence. The slightest stirring of the old issues, 
that should be allowed to settle themselves through 
gradual process of change, is sufficient to arouse all the 
bitterness still left behind by the memories of those dark 
days of indignity and despair. Every instinct that is the 
sacred heritage of our race bound the Southern white 
men together in the desperate struggle for freedom ; and 
the memory of that time, the distrust engendered by that 
long rule of injustice, have made inflexible the determi- 
nation that no shadow of those black years shall ever 
darken the prosperity of the present or the future. And 
no one who reads with fair mind even the bare record of 
these incomplete pages can wonder. 



INDEX 



Abell, Judge, 354, 355, 362. 

Abolition, 325, 326, 331. 

Abolitionists, 296-298. 

Acaanibas, 44. 

Acadians, arrive in Louisiana, 104, 105. 

Acquisition, of Louisiana by Spain, 102; 
by United States, 178 £E . ; by France 
from Spain, 179-184; opposition in 
Congress, 215 ff. 

Adair, General, 232, 243, 246, 273. 

Adams, John, 176-178. 

Adams, J. Q., 216, 217. 

Agriculture, 41, 70, 74, 91, 92, 199-204, 
330. 

Alabamas (Alibamons), 68, 153. 

Alba, Duke of, 116. 

Alexander VI, Pope, Bull of Demar- 
cation, 2. 

Alibamons, see Alabamas. 

Allen, Governor Henry W., 328, 335; 
farewell address, 335-337. 

AUouez, Father, 11. 

Almonaster, Andres, 130, 160. 

Amendment, Thirteenth, 334; Four- 
teenth, 347, 351, 357, 359, 360, 362, 
366; Fifteenth, 367. 

America, European claims hi, 2, 3. 

American Revolution, Spanish part in, 
138 flf. 

" Americans," Creole idea of, 157. 

Antoine, C. C, 372, 387. 

Antoine, P^re (Antonio de Sedella), 
205, 207. 

Apalache Bay, 25. 

Apalacliicola Bay, 26, 

Architecture, Spanish style replaces 
French, 160, 161. 

Arroyo Hondo (Bayou Funda), 237. 

Aubry, 105, 106, 109, 111-115, 117-123, 
125, 126. 

Austrian Succession, War of, 90. 

Baird, General, 355-357. 
Baker, Joshua, 363. 



Baker, Captain, 274. 

" Bankomania," 287. 

Banks, General N. P., 321, 325,326, 
328 ; Teche campaign, 323, 324 ; at- 
tacks Port Hudson, 324 ; defeated by 
Taylor, 329 ; labor laws for f reedmen, 
329, 330, 333. 

Baratarian pirates, 25G £E., 264; in 
battle of New Orleans, 271 £E. 

Bastrop, Baron de, 170. 

Bastrop grant, 244. 

Baton Rouge, 33, 228, 229, 234; cap- 
tured by Galvez, 145 ; held by Spain, 
153 ; capital of State, 288 ; captured 
by Farragut, 320. 

Battle of New Orleans, 269 ff. 

Bayou Funda (Arroyo Hondo), 237. 

Bayou Manchac, 36. 

Bayou St. Jean, 41, 66, 70. 

Bayougoulas, 30, 31, 35. 

Beaujeu, Sieur de, 17. 

Beauregard, G. T., 288, 289, 308. 

Behan, W. J., 376, 379. 

Bell, John, 303-305. 

Belle Isle, 199. 

Bdluche, 259, 272, 274. 

Benjamin, Judah P., 333. 

Bernadotte, 183. 

Berthier, 180, 181. 

Bienville, C(iloron de, 97. 

Bienville, Jean Baptiste Le Mojme, 
Sieur de, 26, 30, 31, 33, 36, 38, 40, 47- 
49, 61-63, 65, 197; deceives English, 
41, 42 ; explores Red River, 42-44; as- 
sumes command, 46 ; builds Fort 
Louis on Mobile River, 46 ; super- 
seded by Cadillac, 53 ; first war with 
Natchez, 54, .55 ; takes command, 
55; superseded by De I'Epinay, 55; 
has government removed to New Or- 
leans, 68; second war with Natchez, 
73, 74 ; promulgates Code Noir, 74- 
79 ; charges against, 79 ; dismissed 
from oflBce, 79, 80; made royal gov- 



402 



INDEX 



ernor, 87 ; returns to Louisiana, 88 ; 
attacks Chickasaws, 88, 89; second 
campaign against Chickasaws, 89, 90; 
resigns, 89, 90 ; appealed to by revo- 
lutionists, 107, 108. 

Bienville, Noyan de, 115, 122. 

Biloxi Bay, first government headquar- 
ters, 38 ; government seat removed, 
46, 47 ; restored, 64 ; old fort burned, 
65; present site made capital, 65. 

Black Code, see Code Noir. 

Blennerhasset, Harman, 245. 

Boisblanc, 107, 122, 124, 125. 

Boisbriant, Sieur de, 39, 79. 

BoUman, Eric, 243, 

Bonaparte, Lucien, 181, 182. 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, see Napoleon. 

Bor6, Etienne de, 194, 199, 200, 203, 223. 

Bouligny, Francisco, 118, 176. 

Boundaries, extent claimed for France 
by La Salle, 15; of French colonies 
on west, Marbois' view, 67 ; at ces- 
sion from France to Spain, 102 ; at 
end of American Revolution, 149; 
between Spanish Floridas and United 
States, settled, 172, 173 ; of territory 
ceded back to France by Spain, 184 ; 
Spanish claim West Florida, 190 ; of 
territory purchased by United States 
of Napoleon, 194 ; of French terri- 
tory transferred to United States, 
discussed, 197-199 ; United States 
claim West Florida, 221 ; between 
territory of Orleans and Mississippi 
territory, 222 ; boundaries not re- 
cognized by Spanish, 228, 229; West 
Florida disputes, 247 ff. ; boundaries 
of present State of Louisiana, 250, 
251 ; by treaty of 1819, 285. 

Boutwell, G. S., 344, 346. 

Boyer, B. M., 357. 

Bradford, editor of the " New Orleans 
Gazette," 232, 233, 235, 243. 

Bragg, Braxton, 308. 

Breckenridge, John, 217, 218. 

Breckenridge, John C, 304, 305. 

Brown, James, 246, 247. 

Bruns, J. Dixon, 377. 

Bucjcarelly, Antonio, 116, 131. 

Buchanan, General R. C, 365, 366. 

Bullitt, Colonel Alexander, 161. 

Burling, Walter, 240. 

Burr, Aaron, 152, 171, 177, 231-234, 
236, 239, 240, 244, 245; visits New Or- 
leans* 230. 



Burr Conspiracy, 222 ff. 

Butler, Benjamin F., 311, 312; occu- 
pies New Orleans, 313 ; military gov- 
ernment, 314; confiscations, 315, 316; 
arms slaves, 316, 317 ; frauds of, 
317-319; military operations of, 320; 
orders election, 320, 321; removed, 
321. 

Cabildo, 129, 131, 132, 189, 195, 222. 

Cabildo house built, 160. 

Cabot, 2. 

Caddoes, 43. 

Cadillac, Lamothe, 53 ; antagonizes 
Indians, 54 ; recalled, 55. 

Campbell, General John, 143, 147. 

Canada, 3, 5, 6-15, 18, 19, 21, 24, 38, 70, 
94, 96, 99, 100, 101, 103, 116, 142, 
143, 180; ceded to England, 102. 

Capital, of colony at Biloxi Bay, 38 ; 
removed to Mobile, 46, 47 ; reestab- 
lished at Biloxi Bay, 64 ; new site 
on Biloxi Bay, 65 ; removed to New 
Orleans, 68 ; removed from New 
Orleans to Donaldson ville, 286 ; re- 
established in New Orleans, 286 ; 
established at Baton Rouge, 288; 
Confederate government at Shreve- 
port, 320; Federal capital at New 
Orleans, 314. 

Capuchins, 68, 69, 99, 130, 134, 205; 
their convent burned, 160. 

Caresse, Pierre, 107, 122, 124. 

Carlos III, 101. 

Carlos IV, 181, 205. 

Carmelites, 68, 69. 

Carmichael, William, 166. 

Carolina, North, 155. 

Carondelet, Baron de, succeeds Miro 
as governor, 167; allows navigation 
restrictions to lapse, 167 ; trouble 
with revolutionists, 167 ff. ; forbids 
importation of slaves, 172 ; retires, 
174; his work described by Robin, 
208, 209. 

Carroll, General, 269, 273, 274. 

Casa Calvo, Marquis de, governor of 
Louisiana, ad interim, 176, 177, 189, 
190, 228. 

Cavelier, Jean, 17, 18, 20, 21. 

Census, first, of New Orleans, 62 ; by 
De Vaudreuil, 92, 93; by UUoa, 109 ; 
by O'Reilly, 127. 

Cession, of territory east of Mississippi 
River by France to England, 102; of 



INDEX 



403 



Floridas to England by Spain, 102 ; 
of Louisiana by France to Spain, 102 ; 
by Spain to France, 182, 183 ; of 
Louisiana and West Florida to United 
States, 193, 194 ; of Louisiana to 
United States debated in Congress, 

215 ff. ; Northern States oppose, 

216 ff. ; ratified by Congress, 221. 
Charity Hospital of St. Charles, 160. 
Charles V, 2, 3. 

Charleston, company formed at, to 
settle on Mississippi River, 164. 

Charlevoix, Father, 71, 74, 201. 

Chasteaumorant, Joubert de, 25, 27. 

ChSteauguay, 39, 50. 

Ch(5part, 83, 84. 

Chickasaws, 88-90, 153 ; hostility of, 
73 ; aid the Natchez against French, 
85, 86. 

Choctaws, 153, 269 ; friendly to French, 
85 ; influenced by English, 95. 

Choiseul, Due de, 101, 108. 

Cirilo, Padre, 134. 

Citizenship, rights of Louisianians to, 
under Act of Cession, 194, 219, 220. 

Civil Code, 246, 247. 

Civil War in Louisiana, 308 flf. 

Claiborne, W. C. C, 185, 222-225, 227, 
230, 231, 233-235, 238, 241-246, 256, 
260, 262, 263, 279-281; provisional 
American governor of Louisiana, 195 ; 
takes possession for United States, 
195, 196 ; elected first governor of 
State, 251; resigns office, 284. 

Clark, Daniel, 195, 223, 230, 231. 

Clark, George Rogers, 142, 143, 147, 169. 

Cochrane, Admiral, 267, 281. 

Code Noir (Black Code), 128, 171, 195 ; 
digest of, 74^79. 

Code O'Reilly, 127-130, 132, 133. 

Coffee, General, 269, 273-275. 

Colbert, Jean Baptiste, 11, 12. 

Coleridge, S. T., opinion on stability of 
Union, 290. 

College of Orleans, 285, 286. 

CoUot, General, 175, 180, 208, 209. 

Compagnie des Indes, 59 £f. See Mis- 
sissippi Company. 

Company of the West founded, 57. 

Confederate States, Constitution adopt- 
ed, 306 ; defeat of, 335. 

Conflagration of 1788, in New Orleans, 
159. 

Congress, 155j 161, 162; petitioned to 
obtain Mississippi Valley, 185 ; urges 



Jefferson to oppose Napoleon, 187; 
debates over Louisiana purchase, 
215 ff. ; ratifies Jefferson's purchase 
of Louisiana, 221 ; disapproves Lin- 
coln's plan of reconstruction, 332 ; 
passes Thirteenth Amendment, 334 ; 
reconstruction acts of, 344 ff. ; Four- 
teenth Amendment. 348-351 ; Inves- 
tigating Committee of 1866, 357 ; 
Reconstruction Bill, 359-361 ; orders 
military rule, 359, 360 ; Investigat- 
ing Committee of 1872, 370, 371 ; 
Second Investigating Committee of 
1872, 375; Investigating Committee 
of 1874, 382, 384, 385 ; Wheeler Ad- 
justment, 386 ; settles Hayes-Tilden 
election, 391; McVeagh commission, 
392. 

Connelly, British agent, 163. 

Constitution (of United States), in re- 
lation to Louisiana purchase, 217- 
220. 

Constitution (State) of 1812, 250; of 
1852, 288 ; of 1852, remodelled, 306 ; 
of 1864, 330, 331, 348; attempt to 
reassemble Convention of 1864, 353- 
357 ; of 1868, 363-365 ; of 1898, 397, 
398. 

Consul, first United States, at New- 
Orleans, 175. 

Cordero, Governor, 233, 235-237. 

Coureurs de bois, 7,8., 

Crozat, Antoine, leases the colony, 52 ; 
charter of, 52, 53 ; colonial govern- 
ment of, 53; condition of colony 
under, 53, 54 ; abandons his charter, 
55. 

Currency, colonial, 71, 72, 86, 93. 

Gushing, Colonel, 234, 237, 238. 

D'Abadie, 103, 104 ; death of, 105. 

Dagobert, Father, 112, 130, 134. 

Danville convention, 162. 

D'Aquin, Major, 269, 274. 

D'Arensbourg, Chevalier, 107. 

D'Arges, 158, 162, 163. 

D'Artaguette, Diron, 50, 51, 89. 

D'Artaguette (the younger), 89. 

D'Aunoy, 139. 

Dauphin (Massacre) Island, 47. 

Davis, Jefferson, 303, 

Davis, H. W., 332. 

Decres, Minister of Marine, 183 ; his 

prophecy, 191, 192. 
De Garay, Francis, 3. 



404 



INDEX 



De Graff, Laurent, 25. 

De la Chaise, 79, 107. 

Delaronde, 275. 

De Lassus, Carlos Dehault, 248, 249. 

De Lemos, Gayoso, becomes governor 
of Louisiana, 174, 175; death of, 176. 

De Leon, Ponce, 3. 

De I'Epinay, 55. 

De Luna, Tristan, 4. 

Demarcation, Bull of, by Pope Alex- 
ander VI, 2. 

Democratic Club, 169. 

Denison, George, correspondence with 
Secretary Chase, 318, 319, 321. 

De Noyan, Jean Baptiste, 107, 115, 122, 
124. 

Derbigny, Pierre, 247, 286, 

De Soto, Hernando, 4. 

Despau, Charles, 169. 

D'Estr^e, Comte, 16. 

De Vaca, Cabeza, 3, 4. 

Disfranchisement of Confederates, 
327, 360-365 ; Johnson's proclama- 
tion of amnesty, 342. 

Dollier de Casson, 12. 

DonaldsonviUe made State capital, 286. 

Dostie, A. P., 354, 357. 

Douay, Father, 18, 25, 27. 

Doucet, J. J., 112, 122, 124, 125. 

Douglas, Stephen A., 303-305. 

Dunn, Major Isaac, 161. 

Du Pratz, Le Page, 62, 64, 66. 

Durant, T. J., 331, 362. 

DureU, Judge, 353, 373 ; midnight 
order of, 374. 

Dutch War, 13. 

Duvergier, 68. 

Ecclesiastical divisions, 68, 69. 

Education in Louisiana, 285, 286. 

Eliot, T. D., 357. 

EUicott, Andrew, 174. 

Embargo, 259. 

Emory, General W. H., 370, 375, 380, 
381. 

Enforcement Act, 253. 

English, claim to North America, 2; 
method of colonization, 5, 6 ; plan to 
colonize Mississippi Valley, 23, 24, 
38 ; expedition to Mississippi, 41 ; 
traders' influence upon Indians, 47, 
48, 53, 88, 95, 97; obtam territory 
east of Mississippi River from 
France, 102 ; occupy ceded territory 
of Spain and France, 103 ; colonies, 



growth of, 103, 104 ; Spanish against, 
in American Revolution, 138 ; plan 
to seize Louisiana in American Re- 
volution, 142 ff. ; cede Floridas to 
Spain, 149; cede western territory 
to United States, 149 ; threaten in- 
vasion, 166 ; dependence of United 
States upon alliance with, 184, 185, 
188 ; war of 1812, 252 ff. ; before New 
Orleans, 269 £E. 

Espiritu Santo, Rio del, 3. 

Etruria, 184. 

Everett, Edward, 303. 

Expansion, 287 ff. See also " Spanish," 
"French," "United States," and 
"Louisiana." 

Exploration, see " Spanish," " Eng- 
lish," "French." 

Farragut, Admiral, 311 ; at New Or- 
leans, 312 ; captures Baton Rouge, 
320. 

Federal Government, 156, 163 ; weak- 
ness of, 155 ; unpopular in Kentucky, 
168; citizen Genet opposes, 169; 
greater confidence of West in, 172, 
173 ; sees necessity of Mississippi 
and firm attitude towards Spain, 
176. 

Ferdinand VLI, 249. 

Fessenden, William Pitt, 347. 

Filibusters, French, in Gulf of Mexico, 
16. 

Filles a la cassette, 82, 83. 

Flanders, B. F., 328, 362. - 

Flaujac, General de, 274. 

Floridas, 163, 180, 232; Spanish in, 
3 ff.; design of Galvez to seize, 140 ; 
United States offers to buy, 1 86 ; 
Jackson's raid settles boimdaries, 
285. 

Florida parishes, 251. 

Florida, West, 158, 221, 228, 229; 
Americans demand cession from 
Spain, 166 ; incorporated with Louisi- 
ana, 247 ff.; occupied by United 
States m War of 1812, 254, 256. 

Flournoy, General, 255, 260. 

Folch, Governor, 248, 249. 

Fort Bute, 103. 

Fort Charlotte, 103. 

Fort Cond«§, 103. 

Fort Louis de la Louisiane, founded on 
Mobile River, 46 ; abandoned, 50. 

Fort Nogales, 175. 



INDEX 



405 



Fort Panmure, 103, 175. 

Fort Prudhomme, 15. 

Fort Rosalie, 55, S3, 84. 

Fort St. George, 103. 

Fort St. Louis of Texas, 17. 

Foster, Charles, 382. 

Foucault, 114, 117, 121, 122. 

Frankland, State of, 155. 

Frederick the Great, 98. 

Freedmen, 195, 203, 269, 326 ; Banks's 
labor laws, 329, 330, 333 ; demorali- 
zation of, 337-340 ; celebrate aboli- 
tion, 340-342; Fourteenth Amend- 
ment, 348-351 ; Freedmen' s Bureau 
Act, 351, 352 ; privileges under Con- 
stitution of 1868, 363-365; Union 
League, 366 ; effect of politics upon, 
396 ; suffrage restricted, 397, 398. 

Freedmen's Bureau, 330, 337-340, 347, 
351, 352. 

Freeman, Colonel, 237, 238. 

French, rivals of English, 2, 3 ; estab- 
lished in Canada, 5; character of 
settlements, 5-10; explorations of 
Northwest, 10 ff. ; colonial policy, 
14, 15; in Gulf of Mexico, 16 ff., 22- 
25 flf. ; colonization of Louisiana, 38 
ff. ; neglect of colonies, 45, 46 ; diffi- 
culties with English traders, 47, 48, 
53, 73, 88, 95, 97 ; weakness of colo- 
nies, 97, 98 ; final defeat, 102 ; yield 
territory to English, 102, 103 ; cede 
Louisiana to Spain, 102 ; revolution- 
ists in Louisiana, 167 flf. ; efforts to 
regain Louisiana, 179 ; plans to oc- 
cupy Louisiana, 182 ff . ; obtain Lou- 
isiana from Spain, 183, 184 ; Louisi- 
ana transferred to, 194 ; negotia- 
tions with United States, 180-194 ; 
transfer Louisiana to United States, 
195, 196; influence upon Louisiana, 
204 flf. 
French and Indian War, 96-100. 
Frontenac, Count, 13. 
Fuentes, Count de, 116. 
Fur trade, influence upon exploration, 
6. 

Gallatin, Albert, 179. 
Gallin^e, Father, 12. 
Galvez, Bernardo de, 137-141, 143, 144, 

148, 149, 152 ; captures Manchac, 

Baton Rouge, and Natchez, 145 ; 

captures Mobile, 146 ; captures Pen- 

sacola, 147. 



Gambio, 259. 

Gardoqui, Diego, 152, 158, 159, 162-164. 

Gayarre, Charles, interview with Sew- 
ard, 358. 

Gayarr«5, Contador, 113, 118, 

Genet, Citizen, 169. 

Gens de Couleur, see Mulatto. 

George III, 101, 142, 149. 

Gerard, Conrad Alexander, 150. 

Ghent, treaty of, 270. 

Gibbs, General, 275, 276. 

Godoy, Manuel, 172, 181, 182. 

Grand Alliance, 21, 47. 

Grande Isle, 257. 

Grande Terre, 257. 

" Grandfather clause," 398. 

Grandprd, Charles de, 175. 

Grandpre, Louis de, 249. 

Grant, General U. S., 343-345, 347, 
365, 371, 373-375, 380-382, 385, 386, 
388, 392. 

Grimaldi, Marquis de, 116. 

Groseilliers, Sieur de, 11. 

Grymes, John R., 261. 

Guion, Captain, 175. 

Gulf of Mexico, Spanish settlement on, 
4 ; Spanish claims, 15, 16 ; French 
claims, 16 ff. 

Hachard, Madeleine, description of 

New Orleans, 81, 82. 
Hahn, Michael, 328, 330, 331, 343, 354, 

357, 383, 384, 386. 
Haldimand, General, 143. 
Hall, Judge, 223, 243, 282, 283. 
Hancock, General W. S., 303,365. 
Hayes, R. B., 387, 390-392. 
Hebert, Paul, 288. 
Hennepin, Father, 23, 24, 26, 29, 31, 

38, 41. 
Herrera, General, 233-235, 237. 
Hillhouse, James, 216. 
Hind, Major, 269. 
Houmas, the, 31, 33-35. 
Howard, General Oliver 0., 337, 351. 
Howell, R. K., 353, 357. 
Huger, Isaac, 164. 
Humbert, General, 278. 
Humphreys, Captain, 273. 

Iberville, Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d', 
24-26; at Mobile Bay, 26; ascends 
Mississippi, 30 flf. ; at Pointe Coupt5e, 
33 ; at the Houmas, 34 ; discovers 
Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, 



406 



INDEX 



36; builds Fort Maurepas at Biloxi 
Bay, 38 ; plan of colonization, 38 ft. ; 
second voyage, 40 ; at the Tensas, 42 ; 
illness, 44 ; returns to France, 44 ; 
third voyage, 46; Fort Louis founded 
on Mobile River, 46 ; in War of Span- 
ish Succession, 47 ; death of, 50. 

Ichuse, Bay of, 4. 

Indians, of Louisiana described, 32 fE. ; 
ceremonies of, 34, 35 ; first hostility 
of, 48, 49 ; outbreaks, 73, 74 ; union 
against French, 83, 84; convention 
of friendly tribes, 90 ; Kerl^rec's 
troubles with, 94, 95. 

Tunis, Henry, 161, 170. 

Inquisition in Louisiana, 205 fE. 

Island of Orleans, see Orleans. 

Jackson, Andrew, 230, 232, 245, 264, 
266, 269, 272, 275, 276 ; campaign in 
West Florida, 256 ; arrives in New 
Orleans, 265 ; victory over British, 
277 ; usurpation of civil authority, 
278-283 ; in Florida war, 285. 

Jacobin Club of Philadelphia sends 
proclamation to Louisiana, 169. 

Jay, John, 150-152. 

JeflEerson, Thomas, 166, 177, 178, 186, 
215, 229, 232, 233, 236, 238, 246, 248, 
253 ; character and policy, 179 ; de- 
cision in regard to Louisiana, 184, 
185. 

Jesuits, missionaries as explorers, 6, 
8-10, 68, 69, 80, 92, 99, 198. 

Jews, excluded from colony, 75. 

Johnson, Andrew, 342, 344, 345, 348, 
354, 355. 

Johnson, Henry, 286. 

Johnson, Isaac, 287, 288. 

Joliet, Louis, 13. 

Jones, Lieutenant Catesby, 266, 267. 

Joutel, 17, 18, 24. 

Keane, General, 266, 267, 275, 276. 

Kellogg, W. P., 373, 375-378, 380-382, 
384, 386, 387, 390, 391. 

Kentucky, 156, 158; demands separa- 
tion from Virginia, 155 ; trade with 
Louisiana allowed, 160-164 ; opposi- 
tion to Federal government, 168 ; in- 
fluence of Genet, 169. 

Kerl6rec, 94, 98-100, 103. 

King, Rufus, 180, 181. 

King William's War, 21. 

Ku-Klux-Klan, 366. 



Lacoste, Major, 274. 

Lafitte, Jean and Pierre, 258 fE.; in 
Texas, 285. 

Lafreniere, Nicholas de, 107, 112, 113, 
118, 120, 122, 124, 125. 

La Harpe, 66, 67, 74, 80, 199. 

Lake Lovelace, defeat of the Natchez 
at, 85, 86. 

Lambert, General, 276-278. 

Lane, Joseph, 304. 

La Salle, Commissary, disputes with 
BienviUe, 49. 

La Salle, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de, 16, 
17, 21-23, 25, 29, 36, 39, 40, 198; first 
explorations in Ohio valley, 12 ; his 
plans, 13, 14; expedition to the Mis- 
sissippi, 14; reaches mouth of river, 
15; death of, 18, 20. 

La Tour, 66, 79. 

Latour, Carriere, 262, 263. 

Laussat, 189, 190, 194-196. 

La Vente, Cur6, disputes with Bien- 
ville, 49. 

Law, John, 57, 200, 201 ; bank estab- 
lished, 57; founds Company of the 
West, 57; financial and colonial 
schemes, 57-61; failure, 63, 64; ex- 
pelled from France, 65. 

Le Clerc, Father, 25, 29, 35. 

Le Clerc, General, 182, 183. 

Lemaire, Father, testimony on west- 
ern boundary of Louisiana, 198. 

Le Moyne, Jean Baptiste, see Bienville. 

Le Moyne, Louis, see ChSteauguay. 

Le Moyne, Pierre, see Iberville. 

Lesassier, 107, 114. 

Le Sueur, Pierre, 39, 45, 85. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 304, 305, 330-332, 
334, 342; on right to secede, 302, 303. 

Lislet, Moreau, 246, 247. 

Little Manchac, 103. 

Livingston, Edward, 243, 247, 261, 263. 

Livingston, Robert R., 180, 181, 186, 
188, 192-194. 

Longstreet, General James, 379. 

Loubois, defeats the Natchez, 85. 

Louis XIV, 5, 10, 13, 46, 47, 52, 55, 56. 

Louis XV, 55, 106, 107, 111, 113, 130. 

Louis XVI, 167. 

Louis, Jean, founds charity hospital, 
160. 

Louisiana, possession taken by La Salle, 
15; English plan to colonize, 23, 24, 
28 ; Iberville's expedition, 25 ff. ; 
colonization by French, 38 fE. ; Eng- 



INDEX 



407 



lish expedition to, 41 ; under Crozat, 
52 ff. ; under Law's Mississippi 
Company, 57 ff. ; negro slaves intro- 
duced, 64; divided into districts, 68 ; 
ecclesiastical divisions of, 68, 69 ; cur- 
rency, 71, 72, 86; a royal province, 
87 ; agriculture and trade under De 
Vaudreuil, 91, 93 ; during French 
and Indian War, 96-100; a burden 
to France, 100-102 ; ceded to Spain, 
102 ; English trade with, 103 ; dis- 
content of people, 106 ; trade laws of 
Ulloa, 109, 110 ; Spanish laws, 127- 
130 ; Spanish trade regulations, 130, 
131, 135-137; division into upper and 
lower provinces by Spanish, 133 ; 
trade with English colonies, 136 ; in 
American Revolution, 138 If. ; Eng- 
lish plan to seize, 142 ft'. ; intrigues 
with western States, 155 ff. ; danger 
of English invasion, 1 66 ; Americans 
demand New Orleans, 166 ; church 
separated from Canada, 168; efforts 
of Napoleon to regain, 179 ff. ; ceded 
to France, 183 ; Napoleon's plan to 
occupy, 182 ff.; Congress wishes to 
invade, 187 ; prepares to receive 
French, 189 ; Laussat's reception 
in, 189, 190; treaty of purchase by 
United States, 193, 194 ; Laussat 
takes possession, 194 ; act of transfer 
to United States, 195, 196 ; descrip- 
tion of, 197 ff.; French and Spanish 
influence upon, 204 ff. ; Spanish 
church and Inquisition in, 205 ff. ; 
effect of Spanish government in, 213, 
214 ; territorial government under 
United States, 222-224; discontent 
with new government, 224-227 ; di- 
vided into parishes, 227, 228 ; bound- 
ary disputes, 228, 229 ; the Birrr con- 
spiracy, 230 ff . ; West Florida dis- 
putes, 247 ff.; admitted to Union, 250; 
Constitution of 1812, 250 ; boundaries 
of present State, 250, 251; war of 
1812, 252 ff.; boundary treaties of 
1818, 285 ; importance in Civil War, 
308 ff. ; Farragut's campaign, 311 ff. ; 
Butler's military operations, 320 ff. ; 
Lincoln's plan of reconstruction, 322, 
323 ; civil government organized by 
Union party, 328 ; Confederate state 
election, 328 ; under Congressional 
reconstruction, 334 ff. ; Confedei'ate 
forces surrender, 335; condition after 



war, 337, 340-343 ; Democratic major- 
ity, 343 ; under military rule, 362 ff . ; 
end of military rule, 366; Caucasian 
Clubs and White League, 366, 367 ; 
fight against "carpet-bag" rule, 
367 ff. ; frauds of officials, 367-369 ; 
Congressional Committee investi- 
gates frauds, 370, 371 ; White League 
acts, 376 ff. ; destruction of " carpet- 
bag " government, 387-392; summary 
of history, 393 ff. 

Louisiana, District of, 222. 

Lovell, General Mansfield, 310, 312, 313. 

Loyola, officer under Ulloa, 113, 118. 

Lynch, John, 372, 373. 

Madison, James, 180, 181, 249, 253, 283. 
Maison Rouge, Marquis de, 170. 
Malbanchia, 26, 30, 37. See Mississippi 

River. 
Mansfield, battle of, 329. 
Marant, Lieutenant, 274. 
Marbois, Marquis, 67, 191-194. 
Marquette, Father, 15. 
Marquis, Pierre, 107, 118, 122, 124. 
Marr, R. H., 376, 377. 
Marshall, Colonel, 162, 163. 
Masan, Balthazar, 107, 122, 124, 125. 
Massacre Island, 47. See Dauphin I. 
Matagorda (St. Bernard) Bay, 17, 198 ; 

second attempt of French to settle 

at, 66. 
Mather, James, 154. 
Mathews, Judge, 243. 
Mazarin, Cardinal, 13. 
McDonough, John, 280. 
McEnery, John, 372, 374, 375, 377, 378, 

384, 391. 
McGillivray, half-breed chief, 152. 
McVeagh Commission, 392. 
Meade, Cowles, 234, 241, 245. 
Menard, Father, 11. 
Merry, Mr., British minister, 230, 231, 

233. 
Metropolitan Police, 366, 375, 378, 381. 
Mexican Association, 230-232. 
Mexico, Burr's plan to invade, 232 ; 

war with, 287, 288. 
Milhet, Jean, 107, 108, 110-112, 119, 

122, 124, 125. 
Milhet, Joseph, 107, 112, 122, 124. 
Minor, Estevan, 175, 238, 240. 
Miro, Estevan, 152, 155, 157, 158, 160- 

167, 206. 
Miscegenation, 298-302, 341. 



408 



INDEX 



Mississippi Company, 58, 59, 63-65, 86. 

Mississippi River, importance to France, 
3 ; discovered by De Soto, 4 ; Nicol- 
let's report, 10 ; called Messipi by 
Allouez, 11 ; called Ohio by Iroquois, 
12 ; explored by Joliet and Mar- 
quette, 13 ; explored by La Salle, 15 ; 
called Malbanchia by southern In- 
dians, 26 ; Iberville explores, 27 ff. ; 
called River of the Palisade, 29 ; set- 
tlements on, in 1722, 66 ; Spanish 
control of, 134, 135 ; interest of Amer- 
ican colonies in, 135 ; English plan to 
seize, 142, 143, 147, 148 ; Galvez drives 
British from, 144-146 ; navigation of, 
by American traders, 149-156, 161, 
163, 166, 167, 169, 173, 175, 176, 184; 
danger from France, England, and 
Spain to United States, 179 ; Napo- 
leon's attempts to acquire, 179 ff. ; 
danger to United States from posses- 
sion by Napoleon, 184, 185 ; objective 
point in War of 1812, 254 flf. ; impor- 
tance in Civil War, 308 ff . ; Farragut's 
expedition, 311 ff. ; under control of 
Federals, 324. 

Mobile, present town founded, 50, 51, 
221, 223, 229 ; occupied by English, 
103 ; captured by Galvez, 146 ; con- 
vention of Indian tribes at, 153 ; 
taken by Wilkinson, 254. 

Mobile Bay explored by Iberville, 26. 

Mongoulachas, 31, 35. 

" Moniteru" de la Louisiane," first new- 
paper, 168. 

Monroe, James, 186, 188, 192-194. 

Monroe, Mayor, 312, 315, 347, 354-356, 
362. 

Moore, T. O., 302, 305, 320, 333. 

Morales, Ventura, 175, 176, 233 ; closes 
port of New Orleans against Ameri- 
can trade, 184, 185. 

Morgan, General David, 272, 274, 277. 

Morgan, Colonel George, 139, 158. 

Moultrie, General William, 164. 

Mouton, Alexandre, 287, 306, 320. 

Mower, General, 363. 

Mulatto, 145, 195, 203, 212, 213, 340, 
398 ; danger from, 298-302. 

Mullen, Colonel, 275. 

Musson, Michael, 377. 

Muter, Colonel, 162, 163, 

Nacogdoches, 233, 236, 237. 
Napoleon, 177, 182-184, 186, 188, 190 



193, 248, 253 ; plans to regain Louisi- 
ana, 179 ff. ; obtains Louisiana and 
Florida, 181. 

Napoleon III, 335. 

Narvaez, Panfilo de, 3. 

Natchez Indians, 54, 55, 73, 74, 83-86, 
88 ; last stand, 85-86. 

Natchez (town of), 103, 145, 153, 157. 
174, 175, 186, 219, 228, 229, 234, 238, 
243, 244. 

Natchitoches, 43, 198, 228, 233, 234, 
237. 

Navarro, Intendant, 113, 118, 161. 

Navigation, see Mississippi River and 
Traders. 

Negro, see Freedmen and Slaves. 

Negro problem, 338-340, 396-399. 

Neutral Ground Treaty, 237. 

New England, opposition to Louisiana 
acquisition, 215, 216. 

New Madrid, 158. 

New Orleans, 69, 80, 84, 92, 93, 96, 176, 
395; founded, 61, 62; first census, 62; 
made seat of government, 68; de- 
scribed by Madeleine Hachard, 81, 82: 
filles a la cassette, 82, 83; arrival of 
Ulloa, 108; O'Reilly in, 119; census 
by O'ReiUy, 127; Spanish laws, 128 
ff. ; Spanish trade restrictions, 130, 
131; American merchants in, 138; 
strengthened by Galvez, 140 ; Eng- 
lish plan to seize, 142 ff . ; Kentuck- 
ians plan to capture, 156, 166 ; Ca- 
rondelet fortifies, 167, 168, 208, 209; 
divided into wards, 167 ; French re- 
publicans in, 167 ff . ; granted as port 
of deposit to Americans, 173; France 
desirous to regain, 175 ; first United 
States consul, 175 ; forbidden to 
American trade, 175 ; importance to 
Jefferson, 184, 185 ; Congress urges 
capture, 187 ; Laussat in, 189, 190 ; 
Decres' prophecy, 191, 192 ; transfer 
to France, 194; transfer to United 
States, 195, 196 ; description at time 
of transfer, 204 ff . ; Spanish influence 
on, 204-207; trade, 210 ff.; effect of 
Spanish government upon, 213, 214 ; 
battle of, 269 ff . ; capital removed to 
Donaldsonville, 286; and returned to 
New Orleans, 286 ; election riots, 288, 
289 ; strategic position in Civil War, 
309 ff. ; defenses, 310, 311 ; Farragut 
against, 311 ff.; Butler in, 313 ff.; 
military government, 314 ; Federal 



INDEX 



409 



election, 320, 321 ; civil government 
organized by Union party, 328 ; un- 
der Congressional reconstruction, 
334 ff. ; freedmen celebrate abolition, 
340-343 ; riot of July, 1866, 355-357 ; 
White League in, 376 ff . ; fight of 14th 
of September, 1874, 377 ff.; over- 
throw of " carpet-bag " rule, 387-392. 

Nez Coup6, 259. 

NichoUs, Colonel, 255, 262. 

NichoUs, General F. T., 388, 390, 392. 

Nicollet, Jean, 10. 

Noailles, Sieur de, 89. 

Norris, Lieutenant, 273. 

Nunez, Vincente, 159. 

O'Fallon, Dr. James, 165. 

Ogden, David A., 243. 

Ogden, General F. N., 376, 378, 379. 

O'ReUly, Alexander, 116, 118-120, 122- 

125, 127, 129, 131. 
Orleans, Duke of, 55, 56. 
Orleans, Island of, 166, 180. See also 

New Orleans. 
Orleans, Territory of, 222. 
Ouachita (Washita) River, Bastrop 

grant on, 170. 
Ouachitas, 43. 

Packard, S. B., 369-372, 374, 387, 390, 
392. 

Facte de f amiUe between Bourbons of 
France and Spain, 101, 151. 

Pakenham, Sir Edward, 270-272; at- 
tacks Jackson, 274-276. 

Panama Canal, 191. 

Panton, WiUiam, 154. 

Panuco, 4. 

Paris, Treaty of, 149. 

Parish divisions, 227, 228. 

Parma, Duke of, 180, 181. 

Patterson, Commodore, 263, 264, 269, 
271, 275. 

Pauger, Sieur, 66, 67. 

Peire, Major, 274. 

Penalossa, Comte de, 16. 

Penalvert, Luis de, 168, 204, 205. 

PtSnicaut, 51, G2. 

Penn, Davidson, 372, 378, 380. 

Pensacola, 26, 63; occupied by English, 
103; captured by Galvez, 147. 

Perdido River, 221. 

Perrier, M., governor of Louisiana, 80, 
84-86. 

Perrot, 11. 



Perry, Colonel, 274. 

Petit, Joseph, 122, 124, 125. 

Phelps, W. W., 382. 

Philadelphia, 158, 160, 163. 

Philip II, 15. 

Pickering, Timothy, 216. 

Piernas succeeds St. Ange, 133. 

Pinchback, P. B. S., 370, 372, 374, 375, 
392. 

Pinckney, Thomas, 172, 180, 188. 

Pineda, Alonzo Alvarez de, 3. 

Pirates of Barataria, 256 ff., 264, 271 ff. 

Pitt, William, 99, 101, 104. 

Plantation life in 1803, 200 ff. 

Plauch6, Major, 269, 274. 

Plumer, William, 216. 

Poiudexter, John, 250. 

Pointe Couple, 33. 

Pointe Couple Parish, insurrection of 
slaves in, 171, 172. 

Polk, Leonidas, 308. 

PoUock, Oliver, 131, 139, 145, 162. 

Pontalba, 180. 

Pontchartrain, Comte de, 24, 36, 39, 40, 
50-52. 

Poor whites, 203, 204. 

Population, 50, 92, 93, 109, 127 ; Law's 
attempt to increase, 60-63 ; disposi- 
tion of immigrants, 62, 63 ; condition 
in 1722, 70-73 ; whites less numerous 
than blacks, 74 ; at transfer to United 
States, 200 ; French and Spanish in- 
fluence upon, 204 ff. ; of New Orleans 
from 1840 to 1860, 310. 

Porter, Commander, 311, 313 ; Red 
River campaign, 324, 329. 

Porter, Major, 233. 

Potter, C. N., 382. 

Poupet, Pierre, 107, 122, 124, 125. 

Power, Thomas, 170, 173. 

Poydras, Julien, 146, 171, 223, 250. 

Praslm, Due de, 114, 117. 

Quadroons, 212, 213. See also Mulatto. 
Queen Anne's war, 47. 
Quincy, Josiah, 250. 
Quinipissas, 36. 

Randolph, John, 219. 

Reconstruction, Lincoln's plan, 322, 
323 ; his proclamation, 326 ; Congress 
disapproves, 332 ; congressional plan, 
334 ff. ; Fourteenth Amendment. 
348-351 ; Seward on, 358 ; Recon- 
struction Bill, 359-361 ; military rule 



410 



INDEX 



ordered, 359, 360 ; operation of mili- 
tary rule, 36^ If . 

Red River, expored by Bienville, 42- 
44 ; Banks's campaign, 329. 

R^monviUe, Sieur de, 21, 22, 24, 39, 50. 

Rennie, Major, 276. 

Republicans, French, in Louisiana, 
167 ff. 

Returning Board, 372-374, 381, 382, 
386, 388-390. 

Revolution, American, see American. 

Revolution of '68, 106-114. 

Revolutionists, French, in Louisiana, 
166-170. 

Rey, Felix del, 122, 124. 

Riola, Andres de la, 26. 

Robertson, Thomas B., 285, 286. 

Robin's description of Louisiana, 207 ff. 

Rochemore, Intendant, 98-100. 

Rodriguez, 124, 125. 

Roman, A. B., 286, 287. 

Ross, Colonel, 263, 264, 274. 

Ross, Congressman, 187, 188, 191. 

Rouvilliere, Michel de la, 93. 

Ryswick, treaty of, 21. 

Sabine River, 233-237, 250 ; established 

as boimdary, 285. 
Sagean, Matthieu, 44, 45. 
St. Ange, Commandant, 133. 
St. Bernard's (Matagorda) Bay, 17, 66, 

198. 
St. Denis, 39, 54, 66, 199. 
St. Domingo, 160 ; refugees from, 168, 

171 ; base of Napoleon's operations 

against Louisiana, 182 ff. 
St. Ggme, Major, 273. 
St. John's River, 3. 

St. Louis (Mo.), capital of Upper Louisi- 
ana under Spain, 133. 
Saint-Lusson, Daumon, 12. 
St. Vrain, 170. 
Salcedo, Juan Manuel de, 177, 185, 

189, 190, 233, 235. 
San Ildefonso, treaty of, 180, 181, 

194. 
Saut Ste. Marie, 12. 
Sauvole, Sieur de, 27, 29, 36, 45; takes 

command of colony, 44; death of, 

46. 
Schurz, Carl, 347. 
Sebastian, 165, 170. 
Secession, of west predicted as result of 

Louisiana acquisition, 216 ; events 

leading to, 289-305; Webster on. 



296, 297 ; Louisiana convention, 305- 
307 ; Lmcoln on right of, 302, 303. 

Seignelay, minister for the colonies, 
16, 19. 

Seven Years' "War, 98, 180. 

Sevier, John, 155. 

Seward, Secretary, on Reconstruction, 
358, 360. 

Shelby, Governor, 169. 

Shellabarger, Samuel, 347, 357. 

Shepley, General, 317, 326. 

Sheridan, General, 361-363, 382, 385. 

Shreveport, confederate capital of 
State, 320. 

Sinclair, Lieutenant-Governor, 143, 147. 

Skipwith, Fulwar, 249. 

Slaves, first African, 64 ; laws govern- 
ing, in Code Noir, 74-79 ; number of, 
in 1700, 74 ; character of, 74 ; Spanish 
laws for, 128, 130 ; insurrection in 
Pointe Couple, 171, 172; Carondelet 
forbids importation, 172 ; Code Noir, 
195 ; condition at transfer to United 
States, 201, 202; danger from mulat- 
toes, 212, 213; insurrection in 1811, 
249, 250 ; a cause of sectional differ- 
ences, 292 ff.; abolitionists, 296-298 ; 
mulattoes, 298-302 ; contraband of 
war, 316 ; Butler arms slaves, 316, 
317 ; Lincoln's emancipation procla- 
mation, 325, 326 ; freedom declared 
by State constitution of 1868, 340. 

Slidell, John, 333. 

Smith, General Kirby, 320, 324, 335. 

Snipes, Major, 164. 

Soul6, Pierre, 312, 315. 

Spanish, 19, 20 ; early explorations, 3, 
4 ; claims to Gulf of Mexico, 16, 16 ; 
alliance with French, 101, 102 ; cede 
the Floridas to England, 102, 103; 
take possession of Louisiana, 108-126; 
laws established in Louisiana, 127 
ff.; trade with English, 136; part in 
American Revolution, 138 ff.; regain 
Floridas from English, 149 ; boimd- 
ary questions, 149 ; intrigues with 
western States, 155 ff.; navigation and 
boundary questions with United 
States, 172, 173 ; war vrith English, 
174 ; negotiations with Napoleon, 
179 ff.; cede Louisiana to France, 
183 ; claim West Florida, 190 ; influ- 
ence in Louisiana, 200, 204-207; 
church and Inquisition, 205 ff . ; public 
education, 213 ; effect of government 



INDEX 



411 



in Louisiana, 213, 214 ; boundary 
questions with United States, 228, 
229, 247 ; in Burr conspiracy, 230 ff.; 
West Florida revolution, 247 ff.; 
boundary treaties of 1819, 285. 

Spanish church in Louisiana, 205 ff. 

Spanish succession, 45, 46 ; war of, 47. 

Starved Rock, 15. 

Stevens, Thaddeus, 332, 344, 346, 350, 
359. 

Stewart, Senator, on Republican policy, 
346. 

Suffrage, negro, suggested, 325, 326; 
Banks disapproves of, 326 ; not pro- 
vided by Constitution of 1864, 330, 
331 ; Fourteenth Amendment, 348- 
351 ; riots of 1866 concerning, 353- 
357, 360 ; granted by Constitution of 
1868, 364; restricted, 397, 398; 
" grandfather clause," 398. 

Sugar, first planted, 41 ; successfully 
granulated, 199, 200. 

Sumner, Charles, 332, 346. 

Superior Council, 53, 79, 109, 110, 112- 
114, 128, 129. 

Surgeres, Chevalier de, 25, 27, 36. 

Swartwout, John, 236, 243! 

Talapouches, 152, 153. 

Talleyrand, 181, 186, 188, 192. 

Talon, 11, 12. 

Taylor, General Richard, 320, 324 ; de- 
feats Union army at Berwick Bay, 
325 ; and at Mansfield, 329. 

Taylor, General Zachary, 287, 288. 

Tchoupic, see Bayou St. Jean. 

Tennessee detached from North Caro- 
lina, 155. 

Tensas, 42. 

Test oath, 327, 359, 362-365. 

Texas, settlement by La Salle on coast 
of, 17-20 ; French claims to, 198, 199 ; 
Burr plans to invade, 232 ; boundary 
fixed, 285 ; annexation of, 287. 

Thirty Years' War, 2. 

Thomas, General Philemon, 273. 

Thornton, Colonel, 274, 277. 

Tilden, John, 391. 

Tonti, 18-20, 31, 32, 35, 41, 42 ; letter 
to La Salle, 36 ; death of, 49. 

Toussaint L'Ouverture, 182. 

Tracy, Uriah, 216. 

Trade, 48, 52-54, 66, 71, 72, 91, 93; 
with English, 103, 109, 110 ; Spanish 
regulations, 130, 131, 135-137 ; with 



English - American colonies and 
United States, 135-138, 149-175; 
local, 199, 210, 211, 395. 

Traders, American, 135-137; naviga- 
tion of Mississippi by, 149-153, 155; 
use New Orleans as port of deposit, 

■ 175. 

Traders, English, influence upon In- 
dians. 48, 49, 53, 73, 88, 91, 92, 95, 
97 ; at New Orleans, 103 ; restricted 
by Spanish, 130, 131. 

Tuscany, 180, 181 ; duke of, 184. 

Ulloa, Antonio de, 108-116, 118, 119, 
123, 190. 

Union, different interests of sections, 
178, 179. 

Union League, 366. 

United States, obtain territory east of 
Mississippi, 149 ; southern boundary, 
149, 150 ; discontent of western 
States, 155-158 ; navigation disputes 
with Spain, 172, 173 ; condition at 
Jefferson's election, 178 ff.; seek to 
acquire New Orleans from Napoleon, 
180 ; possible alliance with England, 
184, 185 ; offer to buy New Orleans 
and Florida, 186 ; purchase Louisi- 
ana, 193, 194 ; a Napoleonic nation, 
197 ; condition at acquisition of Loui- 
siana, 214 ff. ; views of Louisiana 
purchase, 215 ff . ; acquire West Flor- 
ida, 248 ff. ; sectional differences, 
289-307. 

Unzaga, Louis de, 127, 131, 134, 137. 

Ursulines, 80-83, 130, 189. 

Utrecht, Peace of, 54. 

Vaudreuil, Marquis de, 90-94, 97, 100, 

101. 
Victor, General, 183, 188, 190. 
Vidal, JostS 176. 
Villars, 139. 

Viller^, Jacques, 263, 264, 284. 
Viller^, Joseph, 107, 121, 122, 124. 
VillertJ, Major, escape from British, 

268. 
Virginia, 155. 
Voorhies, Albert, 343, 354, 355, 363. 

Wade, Benjamin, 332. 
Walker, Joseph, 288. 
War of 1812, 252 tf . 
Warmoth, H. C, 365, 367-370, 372, 
373, 375. 



412 



INDEX 



Washington, President, administration 

of, 164, 173. 
Washita (Ouachita), Bastrop grant on, 

170, 244, 245. 
Watkins, John, 223, 231. 
Wayne, Anthony, 173. 
Wells, J. Madison, 328, 333, 343, 354, 

362, 381. 
Western States, discontent of, 155 ; 

plan to capture New Orleans, 176 ; 

petition to Congress, 185 ; interest in 

Louisiana, 215. 
Westphalia, Peace of, 5. 
Wheeler Adjustment, 386. 
White, Congressman, 216. 
White, E. D., 287. 

White Apple, Natchez village, 83, 85. 
White Camelia, League of the, 367. 
White League, 367, 376-380, 392. 
Wickliffe, R. C, 288, 289, 302. 
Wilkinson, James, 156, 159-162, 164, 

165, 169, 170; visits New Orleans, 

156-158 ; commander of army, 173 ; 



175, 176, 195, 228, 230-232, 234, 235, 
237-246, 254. 

Wilkinson, Major, 276. 

William III, 38, 47; plan to colonize 
Mississippi Valley, 23. 

Williams, Governor, 242, 246. 

Williamson, John, 243. 

WiUing, Captain, 139, 140. 

Wilson, Henry, 346. 

Wiltz, L. A., 382-384, 386, 388. 

Women, first sent to Louisiana, 49 ; 
disreputable class of sent out by Law, 
60 ; unfitness of these, 80 ; filles a la 
cassette, 82, 83. 

Wood, claim to discovery of Missis- 
sippi River, 41. 

Workman, Judge, 231, 243. 

Yancey, W. L. , 304. 

Yellow fever introduced from Havana, 

49. 
You, Dominique, 259, 266, 272, 274. 
Yrujo, 233. 



67 



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